The ski industry has long struggled with basic skier statistics: How many skiers are there? How frequently do they ski? At what rate are they taking up the sport? At what rate dropping out? Answers to such questions are vital, obviously, in assessing share of market and in making reasonable projections of potential growth.
Trouble comes, of course, if the numbers used are wrong — or, as seems to be the case, if something else is actually being measured to produce the numbers most widely used in the ski industry.
Over the course of the last season, Leisure Trends/Gallup has come up with a shocker: approximately five million Americans went skiing. The research involved randomly calling households in the U.S. each night and inquiring about how Americans spend their leisure or free time. The methodology is different because it measures behavior— what someone actually did the day before.
The five million skiers we project is in sharp contrast with the 11 million who said they skied two or more times in 1990, as measured by the National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA). Or with the 14 million who skied once or more in 1990 as measured by American Sports Data (ASD). The higher numbers for skier participation, because they are generated annually and with consistent methodology and consistent results, have achieved widespread acceptance as a measure of active skiers.
On the other hand, the immediacy of the LT/Gallup methodology must be considered. The use of nightly telephone interviewing done randomly is more expensive, but dramatically improves accuracy of recall: it is obviously easier to remember what happened yesterday with precision than it is to recall what happened six months or a year ago, which is the basis for the NSGA and ASD data on participation.
How can such a large discrepancy exist when counting skiers? The simple answer may be that one methodology measures actual behavior, or reality, while the other taps into attitude, which may reflect wishful thinking. A gap exists between what people tell us about how their leisure time is spent (their attitude), and their actual behavior (reality).
The behavioral model suggests that the approximately 11 million Americans we have been counting consist of the five million who actually skied, and includes some six million who may have skied in the past, say that skiing is among their favorite activities, or that they would like to try it. This supposition would put the potential market for people with a high predisposition to ski in the six million range.
The startling figures which prompted this discussion of participation figures stem from some anomalies in the established numbers. First, we have long recognized that an active skier population in the 11-14 million range, multiplied by the frequency with which they claim to ski, produces skier visit totals that are inconsistent with reality — reality as measured by skier visits actually counted at the country’s ski areas and reported to USIA. The supposition has been that there is an “upward bias” that results in over-reporting in the two-to-one range. This would yield twice as many total skier visits as actually took place.
However, instead of discounting the reported frequency, if the five million active skier figure is used instead of 11-plus million, the skier visit totals start to make sense.
New skiers, according to the NSGA, totaled 1.4 million in 1989 while total participation was almost equal to the previous year. Rounding the numbers for the last five years indicates that somewhere around five million skiers started to ski and five million decided to quit. This leads one to conclude that the ski business can be compared to a water bucket with a rather large hole in it, emptying at the same rate it fills. It would be a costly affair to promote for new skiers only to put them in such an equalizing bucket.
Again, we may be looking at responses that reflect desire and intent, rather than behavior. Personally, I prefer a behavioral model for measuring new skiers — in this case the National Skier Opinion Survey, which uncovered that 6.9 percent of skiers interviewed in 1990-91 were first timers. Applied to the five million active skiers identified in the LT/Gallup research, we get a number for new skiers of 345,000 — a figure I find more acceptable.
The problem of exaggerated participation is not exclusive to skiing; it seems to be common to all small-incidence activities, including most sport, and is creating havoc in other industries, notably golf, where the debate is very public as to “real” numbers.
There are profound implications in the five million figure for skiers, especially in the light of the industry’s ambitious plans for increasing the number of skiers. The plan, as presented by McKinsey & Company, said there are 35 million Americans who are potential skiers and that 10 percent of them could be converted over a five-year period, thus adding 3.5 million to the skier population. This 3.5 million represented a 27 percent increase over the 13 million active skier total used by McKinsey; it would have been a whopping 68 percent increase using the five million base. One can speculate that McKinsey’s action recommendations for the industry might have been very different had they been using the lower count of actual skiers.
The implications for marketing the sport are also profound if the lower figure is used — if the behavioral, rather than the attitudinal model is used. Low incidence and low household penetration products and services are not normally marketed via national programs. The lower the potential penetration the more the reliance on targeted communications.
For the ski industry targeted messages would seem more appropriate given low incidence and low penetration. Targeted messages are delivered in many ways, from affinity marketing programs with products that fit your targeted audience, to special interest publications and lists, to simply doing a better job with the customers presently in your camp.
It is axiomatic that actions speak louder than words. To base your planned business increases on inflated numbers is one cause of deflated profits. Manufacturers of skis and boots usually find an outlet for excess inventory and mark it down. Ski area managers see empty lift chairs and stare at empty beds.
Present financial conditions and a more prudent estimate of participation based on behavior rather than attitude leads one to believe there are more effective, if harder work, ways of growing the sport. It starts with finding those consumer segments with a proclivity, the financial means and the time and skill to ski, target them and invite them to play.
