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  Home Page » News » Ski Resorts Try Hard To Win Visitors

Ski resorts try hard to win visitors

Many Colo. areas offering discounts

by Steve Raabe
The Denver Post via AP

DENVER – A hamburger is just a hamburger – unless it’s the poster child for bringing the recession stricken ski industry back to health.

Such is the status of the Vail Resorts Inc. burger, now a special-sauce-laden icon of the ski sector’s push to offer better value.

“The burger, for us, is a rallying cry,” said Vail Resorts chief executive Rob Katz.

Along with a flurry of other promotions, Vail is hyping what it bills as a vastly improved burger this season, at the same $8.75 to $11 price as last year’s hamburgers.

“We’re in a difficult business right now, and we need to engage our guests in every way we can,” Katz said. “Anybody who thinks improving the hamburger will save us from a down economy, well, ... but it sends a signal about what we’re trying to do.”

From lodging deals to early-pay discounts to ski-school promotions, Colorado resorts are rolling out the white carpet in an effort to bring skiers and riders back after a year of economic declines.

“We saw it coming last fall – not a gunshot across the bow, but more like a large missile,” said David Perry, senior vice president at Aspen Skiing Co.

Skier visits at the four ski areas comprising Aspen/Snowmass fell 7.3 percent last year, steeper even than the Colorado ski industry’s overall 5.5 percent decline.

Aspen’s response has been to offer promotions and discounts throughout the coming ski season – an aggressive change from previous years in which discounts would be rolled out only in mid-season as gaps in visitor bookings arose.

“From the first day of the season to the last day, if you want to find a value deal, you will find it,” Perry said. “And it’s not like we’re trying to make them hard to find.”

Among the promotions at Aspen/Snowmass are a free lift ticket and a night of lodging with the purchase of four, discounted lift passes with four or more days of equipment rentals, and a $50 voucher for customers buying five days of private instruction.

Destination resorts such as Aspen were hit harder last year by the recession than closer-in areas relying on Denver-area day skiers.

Steamboat Ski & Resort Corp. absorbed a 6 percent drop in skier visits last season – the biggest decline in at least a decade – prompting the resort to bump up its early-booking loyalty discount higher than ever before.

Customers who have stayed at Steamboat in prior years and who prepaid by Aug. 31 for this winter’s reservations got a

30 percent discount on vacation packages, and 25 percent discounts through Oct. 15.

“That’s the deepest we’ve ever gone,” said Andy Wirth, Steamboat’s senior vice president of marketing and sales. “We have, arguably, the most aggressive programs in the ski and travel industry.”

Should previous Steamboat visitors need additional encouragement to book return vacations, they may get it from skiing legend Billy Kidd, who as part of his marketing agreement with the resort makes personal phone calls to preferred customers.

This year’s marketing initiatives were spawned by last year’s phenomenon of “fewer consumers with less money to spend,” said Ralf Garrison, senior market analyst with the Denver-based Mountain Travel Research Program, which compiles data on resort bookings.

If skiers showed up last year, many of them chose to save money by eliminating ski lessons.

As a result, several resorts are offering new incentives to beef up ski–school enrollment:

•Copper Mountain’s new “Discover Private” program allows skiers who don’t want to spend $475 for a full-day private lesson to pay $150 for two hours of private instruction.

•Winter Park is offering four half-day group lessons for $99 if purchased in advance.

•Vail Resorts also is expanding and discounting its ski-school offerings.

Private-lesson prices are down 3 percent this year at Vail and Beaver Creek, and 10 percent at Keystone. For the first time, Vail Resorts is offering small-group “Adventure Sessions,” with loosely structured lessons and lift line-cutting privileges for $119 to $129 per skier.

Vail’s Katz acknowledged many of the resort’s promotions and discounts could reduce profit margins.

“But hopefully, you get more people to come,” he said. “There is no question that we think (the promotions) over the long term will help drive profits.”

Perry of Aspen said for better or worse, discounts now are part of the ski industry’s marketing strategy and probably will continue for several years.

“We have culturally embedded frugality,” he said. “In the past, it was not socially acceptable to ask for discounts. Now, we’re seeing people calling and brazenly asking for discounts.”

The promotion strategy, combined with early suggestions of economic recovery, could help the industry recover, said analyst Garrison. Reservations for mountain-resort vacations through January are up 2.1 percent from last year.