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Here's an new article about Utah's current push to market down hill skiing. This effort follows immediately upon the heels of a $600,000 campaign authorized by the USFS to promote the 2002 Winter Olympics (paid for, incidentally, with your tax dollars!)
Scott
PS ... what's telling about this article is to see the depths to which ski markets must now compete for their share of a declining number of customers.
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The following story appeared on deseretnews.com on June 22, 1999
Headline: 1 million more skiers?
Subhead: Ski Utah unveils ambitious campaign
Author: By Ray Grass Deseret News outdoor editor
There's a new skier in town and he's about to have a party.
Attire is ski-casual -- parka, powder pants and buckle boots. Skis are
optional. Snowboards welcome. Stay as long as you like. Eat the food,
drink the drinks and enjoy the snow. Oh, and invite your friends.
The guest list is expected to number 4 million.
Or, about a million more skiers than Utah has ever hosted in a single season.
Invitations go out this fall when Ski Utah embarks on a major get-acquainted-with-Utah-skiing campaign.
"I sat in front of my executive committee and told them we're going for
4 million skier days next year, and they chuckled," said Kip Pitou,
executive director of Ski Utah, himself breaking a smile before
repeating the number. "Four million skier days is really not
unrealistic. The reality is we better start shooting high and going for
it because we have this huge investment and this great product and
we're a relative unknown."
In an industry that has stalled over the past decade, Utah too has been
locked around the 3-million-skier-days mark. In comparison, Colorado
records nearly 12 million skier days a year and California around 7
million.
"We have the potential to do these numbers," added Pitou. "We simply
haven't aggressively gone after the business. We haven't aggressively
gone after the local market, for that matter, but we will.
"Our focus will be to bring skiers to the threshold, then bring them
over to Utah skiing. We'll do it by taking a market share from resorts
outside Utah that are doing much more business than we are -- Colorado,
California, New York, New England -- wherever the market exists. We're
in a no-growth business so the only way to go forward is to take skiers
from other markets. It's also the least expensive way of increasing our
market share.
"I think Colorado is nervous. So is California. We have a uniqueness
they don't have. The thing Colorado Ski Country (Colorado's answer to
Ski Utah) is concerned about is our accessibility. We're extremely
accessible -- just 45 minutes to seven major resorts. You can't get
this anywhere else in the world. It's two hours from Denver to the
closest ski area. Then they made it worse by building their airport in
the middle of nowhere. Mammoth is seven hours from Las Angeles and
Squaw Valley is six hours from San Francisco."
Utah did, in fact, set a record this past season. Ski Utah figures show
Utah's total was 3,144,380 skier days in 1998-99. The previous record,
set in 1994-95, was 3,113,072. In 1997-98, Utah accounted for 3,101,735.
In comparison, Colorado is reporting its worst season. Aspen reported
skier/snowboarder visits dropped 8.2 percent, and Vail reported a drop
in business last season of 16 percent. Eastern resorts are also
reporting drops in skier days.
Pitou returned to Utah last fall and bought with him a strong skiing
background. He is the former president of K2 Corporation's bike
division. Before that he was chief operating officer of Pre Ski.
He first came to Utah in 1983 as executive vice president and COO of
Kastle USA. He took the company from No. 10 in the ski market to No.
4. When the company was sold in 1991, he joined K2 and took over the
marketing of Pre Ski from its Park City headquarters. Under his
direction ski sales went from 18,000 to more than 30,000 domestically
and more than 10,000 internationally each year. In 1994, he became
president and COO of K2 Bike Inc. He has been involved in the ski
business for more than 35 years. His sister is Penny Pitou, a double
silver medalist in the 1963 Olympics in Squaw Valley.
Ten months ago he accepted the position at Ski Utah, "First, to get
back to Utah. I was looking for a position that would bring me back.
And I like Utah. I like the mountains and I like the people."
And second, having skied Utah snow, he saw the potential for Utah having a much stronger position in the marketplace.
His first task was to bring the 14 Utah resorts together and headed for
a common target. Too many Utah areas, he said, were looking at the
little guy next door as their competition, instead of the resorts
outside Utah.
"We changed all that. Now we're working together and are focused on our objective. We have a plan," he added.
The program will begin on four fronts:
A 24-page insert will go into ski publications and will spotlight
nothing but Utah skiing. At a cost of $500,000, "This is the most money
the resorts have spent collectively to promote skiing outside of Utah,"
said Pitou.
A newsletter will go out to 250,000 subscribers over the Ski Company
Internet, which is considered the best skier-visited site in the world.
Utah will be featured on the "Snow Zone," a nationally televised ski and forecast show.
Ski Utah will go into key newspaper markets, like Boston and Los
Angeles, and produce ski inserts for the local papers. It will buy and
then re-sell advertising to other companies, "this way we benefit and
the advertisers get ads at a reduced cost," he added.
"The frustrating part to me is we have such great potential, but we've
been slow in responding. Utah was slow in developing its
infrastructure. The first high-speed lift was put in seven years ago.
Colorado has had high-speed lifts for 12 years. Utah was also slow to
accept snowboarding," he explained.
"Utah skiing is one of the better kept secrets in the industry. The
thing we haven't done well is blow our own horn. Utah ski areas spent
$65 million last year on improvements last year, built 11 new lifts and
increased the uphill capacity by 20 percent. This year we'll spend
another $50 million. The investment is huge. To realize the
investment, we need to tell people we exist."
He pointed out, too, that even though Utah has secured the Olympics, Utah skiing won't sell itself because of it.
"Look at Lake Placid. It's disappeared into nothing because it didn't
effectively promote itself before and after the Olympics. Albertville
(France) and Lillehammer (Norway) have done a better job. Calgary did
not do as well. The TV audience will be huge. If we don't capitalize
and merchandise the product before and after, we're making a huge
mistake," Pitou said, "a very big mistake."
Another target area of Ski Utah will be local skiers. Relatively few
people in Utah ski -- 15 to 17 percent in Salt Lake City and only 7
percent statewide. Comparatively, 25 percent of the people in Boston
ski.
"Having ski areas as close as they are is a disadvantage. Locals can
look out their window and see the hills and judge if skiing is good,"
he said.
"Also, I'm trying to work with the resorts to offer an early season
pass at a great discount. It would be good from the day the resort
opens until the Christmas holidays."
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