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Show HOLIDAY,/JANUARY: 1997 Skier Numbers Dwindle, Ski Areas Expand Continued from page Visiting skiers 11 spend $190 a day in Utah, while resident skiers spend $17, according to a 1994 Utah skier survey by the Bureau of Economic and Business Research, at the University of Utah. A dusting of profits doesn’t necescome with sarily Utah’s modest increase in skier visits. Local resorts are privately owned, so financial information is their secret. But declining sales and profits can be inferred from a recent National Ski Areas Association poll of Rocky Mountain ski resorts. Each resort surveyed had increased expenses that more than offset its higher gross revenues. Operating profits for surveyed Rocky Mountain ski resorts slid to $3.8 rising expectations are digging deeply into resort owners’ pockets. Older skiers have more money and want more comforts than younger skiers. They also take the skiing experience slower. Younger skiers will scarf down a hot dog for lunch, then rush off to squeeze in the maximum number of ski runs. Older skiers want a sitdown restaurant, high-quality food, premium beer, and espresso. ophisticated ski service con- sumers, speed moves million, five minutes. a 12% decline. Profit before taxes tumbled to $1.2 million from $2 expect to be lift. Named Silverlode, the lift skiers up 1,300 vertical feet in Disney World has become the business model for destination ski resort wannabes, said Randall Lane, Forbes writer. Boomers bring their whole families to high-end ski resorts and pay Dumbo prices. They expect tennis courts, luxury accommodations, Economies resorts and play of scale an favor important large role in their long-term financial health. With new ski lifts costing over $2 million each, rising expenses in a stagnant skier market may spell trouble for any debt-laden local resorts. The Disney comparison may explain Snowbird’s expansive plans. Hidden Peak—which already suffered entrances, and installing snowmaking equipment for 250 acres of trails. Solitude Resort Village recently finished building a new luxury hotel with oak ski lockers, full service spa, adult game room, and 70-person conference room/theater. Rooms go for $200 a pop. In contrast to its neighbors, Alta the indignity of losing 80 feet of eleva- ski resort has “no plans for expansion of lifts or buildings,” said Otto tion during Snowbird’s tram lifthouse excavation—may get a _ three-story restaurant. In its master plan, Snowbird’s drawings show a conical Wierenga, general manager. “Looking down the road five years, we'll have the same number of lifts, though some may be upgraded, and same number of cafe at the tip of the peak. Salt Lake buildings, replaced.” County and the U.S. Forest Service are studying the proposal. installed Utah’s first 6-passenger, high million from the previous season’s $4.3 million a year earlier, a 40% decline. That 1995 National Ski Areas Association survey lumps data collected from the Utah ski resorts of Alta, Deer Valley, Powder Mountain, and Brian Head with resorts from Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico and Colorado. With the changing demographics of the ski market, Utah resorts can’t depend on the 18- to 24-year-old age group of skiers to fill their chairlifts now. Ski resorts must continue to cater to aging Boomers and their families. The number of skiers who are age 45 to 54 will increase 15% by the year 2000, American Demographics reported. The implications are significant. “As the skier market flattens out, more skiers go to the larger, destination ski resorts,” Menlove observed. Skiers’ Boomers whisked quickly to the mountain top, without waiting in lift lines. Killington, in Vermont, built a highspeed, 8-person chairlift with heaters on each chair. This year, Park City vey. Snowbird also hopes for approval to build a new day lodge in lower Gad Valley with restaurant seating for 250, a ticket office, ski school, and rental shop. This summer, Snowbird enlarged its Mid-Gad restaurant. Recently Snowbird has built new lifts and opened new runs as well. In 1995, Snowbird built its Baby Thunder lift, with nine new beginner and intermediate runs. Next year, Gad I will be shopping, and game rooms. upgraded to a four-person lift and will “Like Disney, ski resorts have learned that one new ride each year is enough to bring customers back, so get six new runs. Also, Snowbird has begun building a hiking and biking trail into Mineral Basin, on the Utah major resorts strive to offer a new fea- County side of the mountain. ture every year - another ‘super’ lift, another new bowl opened. Though these expansions are concentrated at larger resorts, competitive pressures will force the smaller ones to upgrade.” Smaller ski resorts already have less ability to weather poor market conditions, and easily suffer big declines in profitability, according to the National Ski Areas Association sur- Solitude, in Big Cottonwood Canyon, has destination resort dreams like Snowbird’s. Solitude’s five-year plan calls for a three-quarter mile long alpine slide, a new ski lift near Redman Campground, and a Honeycomb Return Lift. It also calls for an expansion of its Moonbeam Center by 12,000 square feet, an Eagle Express day lodge, widening highway lanes near its though some may be Even if Snowbird, Solitude, and Brighton attract more skiers, how will these new customers travel up the canyons and park? Both Big and Little Cottonwood Canyon roads were already overcapacity in 1989 when the county’s canyon master plan was approved. ny new automobile parking on private land in Big or Little Cottonwood canyons, said county planner Cal Schneller. Limiting parking in the canyons is one of Salt Lake County’s methods of protecting its watershed from too much human intrusion and too much automobile traffic. Expanding ski resorts are not only a local phenomena. In Colorado, six resorts are growing—two significantly. Telluride has approval from the U.S. Forest Service to double its skiing terrain, and Steamboat has tentative approval for a nearly 40% increase in ski area. Colorado’s saw Crested Butte, its paid skier days which decline 13% UTAH MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS . 1580 EAST SOUTH CAMPUS DRIVE . UNIVERSITY OF UTAH . 581-7049 Bote MUSEUM STORE over the past five years, has drawn up plans to construct a new base village and Offering ski Mountain. include lifts on Crested over nearby Butte 200,000 Snodgrass North square would feet of commercial space, 1,000 condominium units, and 500 hotel rooms. To attract attention, Crested Butte offers free skiing until Christmas and free spring skiing, as its market share declines. Arapaho Basin, Keystone, and Breckenridge are merging with Vail and Beaver Creek. Combined, the fiveresort Colorado monster will host nearly one-tenth of U.S. skier visits, Outside A Fine Selection of Stationery, magazine reported. Where will the Utah ski industry’s new customers come from? Gifts, It’s difficult to sell skiing to begin- Cards, Books ners at today’s $25-$35 lift ticket prices. Most local skiers learned to ski as kids with their families. ‘Now that it costs $100-$200 a day for a family to ski, and More! how many will continue to make it a regular outing? Yet without novices in 1996, where will the ski resorts be in MARIE LOUISE ELISABETH VIGEE LE BRUN, French (1755-1842) Portrait of the Young Countess Schouvalof (Elizabeth Viadmirovna), 1797 Oil on canvas, 33 x 27 3/4 in. Acc. 1993.034.014 2010? Despite extravagant construction programs, Wasatch ski resorts can look forward to fierce competition for the shrinking pool of out-of-state-skiers. @ PAGE 12 |
