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"12 Predictions on the Future of Ski Resorts" ...

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
... is the title of this article from Hotel Online, which makes some interesting and pretty unusual propositions for the future development of ski resorts.

It's written by Jeff Coy and Bill Haralson. Jeff Coy is a hospitality consultant - here's the website of his company JLC Hospitality Consulting - and Bill Haralson is president of WLHA Economic Consultants, which specialises in gated attractions, including theme parks, water parks aquariums, museums and fairs.

I wonder if we could prepare some respectful and interesting questions for these two gentlemen?
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
David Goldsmith, I think if you asked them the time, they'd ask to borrow your watch. They might predict that in one hour's time, it will be later.
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
You wouldn't ask them to predict snow?
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It's rather North American focus doesn't really have much relevance for many Alpine resorts - Point 8: I've yet to see a resort that doesn't offer most of these things already. Point 9: Is there an alpine resort that does tend to fail to bring in the dosh outside winter?????! Condos aren't exactly going to fit European interests...are they? Snowboarding point is relevant tho...although for Euro-zone resorts you can't risk marginalise your vast numbers of skiing punters, so the option is really to ensure snowboard features are available to skiers too...

Is there a suitable Euro-focused consultant we can fling money at instead?
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Yes. Why do you think I started this thread?
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Obviously, very American in perspective but the waterrider angle is very interesting

As more and more resorts get skilled in water management and invest in water storage and distribution (think snow making) how else can they leverage that infrastructure? pump it around waterparks. However, the USness of these guys' analysis come through. Summer in Pennsylvani, home to one of the resort they praise, is warm. High 20s to low 30s on average and are humid too. So waterparks and getting wet are major fun for people.

The rest of the analysis is fairly generic - use existing assets more, reach new customer groups.

As a boarder I like the idea of being catered for more. EU snowparks are primitive compared to the high level of service the US ones visit. Remember, for smaller resorts, a multi-feature snowpark packs a lot of fun and punters into a small slope. Might some of the lower, smaller, older EU resorts take this route and develop featured parks. Concentrate the snowmaking on these.
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
A very fair point. One mystery is what it costs a resort to build a really good snowpark. It's becoming a competitive, and presumably very expensive, game.

And sadly the things have a nasty habit of melting every spring, unlike skateparks!
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
A lot of parks are now earth mounds with a thn cover of snow, so requires some expense to make but if you are making snow anyhow just point it to the right place.

However, some interesting user feed back on a US blog I was reading. Some guys made an early season trip to a small resort. Complained that the snowguns were all over the snow park but the piste to it and below it were not getting coverage! Basics first then go for the big value add

Cost of the park

Two days earth moving
some metal fabircation
a consultant boarder/skier to design it
er, extra insurance?
A liftie to maintain each day

But cost can be defrayed. Parks do get sponsored by big brands after the yoof market etc etc. There's a job for someone. Negotiating pan-Alpine sponsorship deal of the best parks. Have to vist them all.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
Sorry, inspiration hits me

Interesting that the orginal report doesn't mention mountainbiking as a summer product line. Over here in EU, it seems to an incresingly important business line. A carefully-modeled park could also be used in summer for trails riding and jumps. Also for mountainboarding.
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Ski the Net with snowHeads
It's quite right to contrast the characters of US and European ski resorts. Many US ski areas - particularly in New England - are now defunct, and I think the reason is that from the outset they were dedicated to one activity only.

You could say that many European ski resorts are dedicated to everything from farming to rock-climbing, and always have been. Some ski resorts which have been built from scratch, such as Les Arcs, have experienced periods of severe financial problems due to lack of diversity.

Therefore these US consultants are making relevant noises, but they're also stating the obvious - spend loads of money on new facilities and you should win trade, but I'd ask two questions: have either of them sunk their own money into a ski resort, or managed a ski resort? Are the proposals they are putting up costed and proven, or do they just seem like good ideas?

I'm not sure that building indoor waterparks, skateparks etc. in the mountains is going to draw people from the sea or lakes.

We have a British model: Aviemore. It was a major resort development in the mid-1960s, but its major non-snow amenities were demolished a few years ago. If Aviemore updated itself to become a 'Centerparcs' or similar, now, I'm not sure that it would work.

A lot of this stuff is down to catchment.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Consultants stating the obvious and not necessarily getting that right.

Many US ski resorts, at least on the west coast, are summer resorts which have tacked on skiing and snowboarding as secondary activities, for example Mount Batchelor.

If the crowd follow this advice it leaves a very nice specialist market for those resorts which focus on skiers and do a good job, for example Deer Valley and Alta.
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
I'm not too sure of the quality of this research.
The autumn Snowsports Industry America report states that in general terms sales of Snowboard kit in the USA is down (in round figures) by about 10% on this time last year, whereas there are other growth areas (twin tip skis for e.g.) that sales are doing well in.

Makes a mockery of this reccemondation:

2. Ski resort marketers that focus on young snowboarders will prosper. The young snowboarder market is growing and will sustain the ski resort industry into future years. Snowboarder visits to ski areas expanded 34.8% over the last four years.


Full report is here:
http://www.thesnowtrade.org/downloads/data/topline/market_summary_aug-oct_2004.pdf
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
We've been talking about this over the last few weeks with regard to our own rather minor investments in ski stations. The problem I see in Europe is that investment in more accommodation is growing and lift infrastructure investment is growing more haphazardly, what's hardly happening at all though is any extra runs. We get a few hundred or thousand extra beds in a station, some lifts are upgraded but no extra runs. The obvious consequence is that the runs are getting crowded, something we all notice.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Good point ise, but way too sensible to be worthy of a consultants report. Way too much BS in the "Hotel Online" report.

Just one question, Do they get paid for that??? Puzzled
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Roy Hockley, I suspect they've placed it as a taster, but for me it's not very appetising! It reads very much like "advance on all fronts", which is pretty simplistic. And did you ever hear of "condominiumizing"? God save the English language!
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
ise, correct! Certainly what you say applies to Austria in a big way. In certain parts of Austria, Vorarlberg in particular, the environmentalists have managed to create an environment in which ski resort development has practically stopped. I have close ties with Kleinwalsertal, so get to see the direct consequences of these policies, which are that the valley is serving an ageing and consequently dying population! To me this is all the more irritating because with a few minor changes the ski area in Kleinwalsertal could become competitive with any of the major resorts, such as Kitzbuehel. With just a couple of lifts one could create a truly enormous ski circus, but instead we have a set of small ( but nice ) ski areas which have no interconnect and can only be reached by bus. This kind of thing just isn't competitive any more, especially when one looks at what Kitzbuehel is doing to extend it's own ski circus.

Just to illustrate the point: A few years ago the local goverment made an attempt to ban all cars from the valley. Tourists wishing to come into the valley would have to park (and pay) at the Austrian border and then take the bus into the valey. While this may be a quaint thing that works for places like Oberlech and Wengen, it would have been a giant leap backwards for all the restaurant owners and hoteliers/pension owners that rely on people having their own transport to get then to the respective locations in Kleinwalsertal. Certainly for my parents-in law it would have been a complete disaster! Happily the plan failed because the local planners had not accounted for the fact that the road leading from Oberstdorf into Kleinwalsertal is a 'Bundestrasse' belonging to the Federation and hence the local government does not have the legal right to close it down!!! Ha! (They found that out after spending seven million schillings on the feasibility study). As you probably gather, I could carry on this rant for a while yet...
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Mike Lawrie, very interesting. We get very little information or news of that quality from Austria. If you pick up on any news on that type of thing please file it in Piste. We can upgrade it and tweak it for a front-page news item if it's significant.
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Mike

A great insight into small town/valley politics. Thanks for sharing. Is there no regional ski strategy? Over on Pistehors.com there is reference to the French Rhone-Alps-Maritime regional government commissioning studies into viability fo resorts to focus any investment.

Cheers
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