Despite the growing popularity of the Internet as a way to reach consumers directly, traditional avenues into the $50 billion U.S. travel industry—tour operators, travel agents, meeting planners—are still a powerful way to gain new business. And, according to travel industry insiders, many ski areas could do a better job of taking advantage of available opportunities.
The size and complexity of the U.S. travel industry can make it hard for ski areas to know where to initiate communication in order to create new business.
“How do we begin?” asks Gwen Howat at Mt. Baker, Wash. “We can’t just send out 10,000 brochures. And tour operators don’t come to us for information.”
This difficulty in teaming up can be frustrating for suppliers as well. Kate Norman, sales director for several Shiloh Inn properties in Bend, Ore., and at Mammoth Lakes, Calif., says, “We would like the mountains to do more to present themselves to the travel industry. For example, they overlook the possibilities of tying in with our hotel properties to offer packages to meeting planners.”
Bruce Rozard of Mogul Tours in Boulder, Colo., a large ski tour operator, says a good first step for resorts is to attend meetings of the local chapter of the American Society of Travel Agents (703-739-2782) to make contacts and gather information on other industry groups and trade shows. To find directors of travel and meeting departments of local corporations, he suggests contacting Meeting Planners International (972-702-3022) for local chapter information.
Darryl Matevish of K&N Tours and spokesperson for the National Ski Tour Operators Association buying group, warns that the travel industry can be a tough sell.
“Many people think giving presentations to tour operators and meeting planners will produce immediate results,” he says. “But expect to devote at least three years before seeing significant progress.” Tour operators, who normally want to see and evaluate the resort before arranging anything, usually work about 18 months out to satisfy customers who book anywhere from six months to a year in advance.
Tour Operators. Red Mountain, B.C., started to work with tour operators about six years ago. “We are in a remote area with little local skier base,” says owner Skat Peterson. “We knew we would have to bring people to us.”
In 1989, Peterson started attending meetings of Ski Tops, a tour operator’s organization whose members produce nearly a third of all tour-operator-sponsored destination ski trips (887,000 skier days last year). He made several presentations over a couple of years and established personal relationships with tour operators. The mountain now works with 14 operators, producing around 3,000 of the area’s 100,000 skier-day total.
“And remember,” says Peterson, “Those 3,000 probably produce another 9,000 repeat or word-of-mouth days.”
“Ski Tops is excellent for meeting the right people and finding out who can do what, but operators don’t usually make recommendations—they just book what people ask for,” says Peterson. “So, as a small mountain, you need to budget more for advertising. Also, we print the phone numbers of our tour operators in our national advertising.”
“Getting out information about your facilities is usually more important than price,” says Rozard, “Because buyers will want to negotiate customized deals anyway.”
Travel Agents. Booking a short trip to a local mountain offers little for most travel agents who make most of their money from air ticket and accommodation commissions. But last year, Mt. Bachelor, Ore., teamed up with the local office of UniGlobe Travel, a national travel agency franchise.
“They were looking for ways to use our national marketing reach, particularly our Internet booking capacity,” says UniGlobe Manager Linda Bray. “At the same time, our office is local so we have very good contacts with local hotels.”
While the mountain still handles group travel, UniGlobe now books all accommodation and air travel for independent travelers (FIT, in industry jargon). All FIT inquiries are directed straight to the agency instead of simply being fielded to the local visitor’s bureau. In addition, Mt. Bachelor’s Website is directly linked to UniGlobe.
“We can provide inbound clients with a complete package price, including airline travel, transfers and cars,” says Bray. “Our services have been fundamental in pushing sales and will add around 10,000 skier days this year, with inquiries from as far away as Hawaii and Japan.”
Air packages. Albuquerque, N.M., is better known as the desert backdrop for Roadrunner cartoons than as a ski destination. The city is well-served by Southwest Airlines, however, which sought out five New Mexico ski areas—Red River, Taos, Sandia Peak, Angel Fire and Santa Fe Ski Area—for inclusion in Southwest Vacation packages, where the airline acts as its own travel agent.
“The local mountains were never aggressive in pursuing the travel industry. We had to go to them to work out packages. Some have accommodations and others are simply within reach of urban areas,” says Terry Eisenbart, marketing manager for Southwest. “We are offering great airfares for group bookings from major U.S. cities. For FITs, we can combine side trips to ski areas with golf or business.”
As a result, these five smaller mountains are now offered as destination alternatives to some of the country’s most famous resorts.
Tour Buses. Many East Coast mountains within easy reach of main urban centers work with small tour operators that run bus parties to the mountains each weekend. In Pennsylvania, Seven Springs fills an extra 400 beds each weekend with bus trippers. And Jack Frost/Big Boulder, a smaller area near an urban population base of 30 million, receives up to five tour buses of skiers each weekend as a result of identifying and working with small urban tour operators.
Jack Frost offers tour operators a price break of around 25 percent per person on rentals and lift tickets. Local hotels offer similar discounts—a small price compared to the additional revenue stream the buses bring in.
“The buses are full of hard-partying singles who spend heavily in bars and often make light use of the skiing facilities,” says Jack Frost president Melanie Murphy. “But this market is price-sensitive. A few extra dollars and they’ll simply go somewhere else or even do something entirely different.”
Working with tour bus operators can also direct sales into off-season activities. One of Jack Frost’s main off-season revenue streams comes from paintball enthusiasts who ride the buses in to play during the fall.
Meeting Planning. With hotel facilities that include a range of meeting rooms, Ascutney, Vt., averages three functions, seminars or weddings each week during the off season, as well as some mid-week winter business. This brings in an average of 400 extra room nights per week. The majority of business comes from within 150 miles of the mountain, says the area’s group sales director, Frank Zezza.
“So far we have been going directly to companies, but we plan to work increasingly with professional meeting planners,” says Zezza. “They now represent perhaps 10 percent of our meeting business, but this will rise. We have also been active in listing the mountain on wedding-planning-related Websites.”
As complex as the travel industry may be, the better a ski area marketer understands how the different pieces fit together and how the travel industry buys and sells products, the more effective marketing efforts will be in creating new sources of revenue and bringing more guests to the mountain.
