Over the past two ski seasons a new method of touring center development and promotion has emerged that could change the future of the touring business in the U.S. Sensing the need for a promotional vehicle for their products and the sport of cross-country, Rossignol and Trak have become involved in touring center development. What was once called the “Pinecone Touring Center” might now be a revitalized more active center called the “Rossignol” or “Trak Pinecone Touring Center.”
Rossignol began working with touring centers two years ago on a program to align existing centers with the company and its products. The program had obvious benefits for both parties: Rossignol products get maximum exposure to the public using the center, and the center utilizes Rossignol’s promotional resources to get more people to come and ski their tracks.
According to Rossignol’s cross-country manager, Clark Matis, the company evaluates centers within each sales territory and selects some on the basis of visibility and past performance. “Individual touring center contracts vary,” Matis said, “and there is no set time or equipment commitment. Obviously if a center gets behind our products and program 100 percent, we get behind them 100 percent.”
Rossignol provides centers with demo skis representing a cross section of their line, skis for instructors, point-of-purchase aids, race bibs, start/finish banners, promotions, race prizes and assistance in distribution of the center’s brochures through the Rossignol sales reps. The center in turn becomes the focal point for Rossignol dealer clinics and promotions.
There are 15 centers totally involved with the Rossignol program nationwide and 15 with partial involvement. The program’s most visible successes have been at Sugarbush, Keystone, Mt. Bachelor and Pocono Manor. “The program has been very good,” Matis said. “We will not expand too much as we want quality centers in each territory, not 60 to 100 centers nationwide. If we have too many touring centers, we can’t do the job as effectively.”
Trak started a touring center program with a different approach and philosophy. Rather than go for the established centers (they have two: Copper Mountain and Waterville Valley), they embarked on a program of creating new centers at golf courses in urban snow belt cities in the Midwest and Central New York state. Original plans called for 50 centers to be opened last year, but the poor snow conditions caused only 38 to come into being.
“Our major consideration for getting into the touring center development program,” said Chis Crosby of Trak, who calls his agreement with the various centers a “working agreement” rather than a contract, “was that we felt that without good touring centers the sport of cross-country will not grow. We also felt that with the energy crunch, people would want to ski closer to home and that a local center could serve most of their needs. Established rural touring center owners feel that our urbanized centers will stimulate people’s interest in track skiing and that they will vacation at their more remote centers.”
Using the NSTOA (National Ski Touring Operators Association) manual as their planning guide, Trak provides professional organizational help to get the center started. They also provide equipment for the center’s staff, mechanicals for the center’s brochures and forms, and trail marker and sign mechanicals. Most Trak centers specialize in rentals not in retail sales.
Trak started last season with a backlog of interest in their center program. The poor winter dampened some of that interest and caused Trak to revaluate plans for this year. “We’re going with the existing centers this year,” Crosby indicated. “We feel it’s important to serve the needs of the people who got on line last year. That does not preclude our adding on centers in areas of the country with guranteed annual snowfall. We will continue to try to open centers where we will not be in conflict with an existing, established center. If a prospective center meets the criteria of good snow and non-competition, then we’ll see if it fits into our plans.”
While Trak and Rossignol differ in their approach to touring center development, they have touched on a key issue concerning the future of cross- country skiing. Like Alpine skiing, cross-country’s future rests on area development. Cross-country touring centers are new on the U.S. ski scene and we’re all still finding out what it takes in the way of capital and man- agement skills to make a center successful. That’s why it’s important for the leaders in the cross-country field to assist in development. In the case of Rossignol and Trak, their ex- pertese in advertising and promotion alone is worth the association for most burgeoning centers.
