Seemingly bound so tightly to weather, the ski industry shows no signs of fading from climate change. More snow means a better experience which means more skiers. Regardless where you stand on the future of global warming, fact or fiction, the industry is doing well right now expecting growth of 1.7% in the five years till 2020. (Source: IBISWorld Industry Report - Ski & Snowboard Resorts in the US, December 2015, Andrew Alvarez)

Products and Services Segmentation (2015)

Data shows over 50% of ski resorts' revenue comes from "Skiing Facilities" generated by lift ticket and season pass sales.

Market Research firm IBISWorld, estimates that technological advances and rising infrastructure costs will cause bigger resorts to swallow up the smaller ones. Smaller resorts typically don't offer season pass options, instead concentrating only on daily lift ticket sales. Once acquired by larger resorts, these smaller ones assimilate in to the suite of options covered by their new parent resort's season pass (e.g. Epic Pass, M.A.X. Pass, etc.) effectively expanding the largest pie slice of revenue.

Market Segmentation

Each slice typically is further segmented like this (Source: IBISWorld, 2015). Tapping into the Local Visitors helps level the playing field if your resort isn't thought of as a "Destination Vacation" hotspot.

Interestingly, when the economy is stagnating, this large slice is even more important because skiers tend to concentrate on the skiing to "get their money's worth". They spend less on all the other slices, for example packing sandwiches instead of opting to visit the resort restaurant or cafe. Maybe they skip buying the shirt from the Whistler gift shop or pass on snowboarding classes till next visit.

Additionally, destination skiers go down in a slow economy, tending to stay local. Maybe New Englanders ski Bristol or Jay Peak, instead of taking the family to the Alps. This makes the daily skier demographic even more crucial to the revenue division.

“...think of [SnowCAP™] as making the pie bigger by getting more day skiers out and building anticipation in destination skiers.”

One of the drivers for creating our Snow Alert Platform was to influence these all-encompassing monetary slices. Instead of increasing the lift ticket slice, think of it as making the pie bigger by getting more day skiers out and building anticipation in destination skiers. If you are a destination skier living in balmy Los Angeles dreaming of your upcoming mountain vacation, you'll sign up to the alerts and receive animated glimpses of the snowfall from the slope anywhere you receive a text - an office meeting, in traffic, in line at the Starbucks. The idea is this increases their experience even before they arrive which will make them more likely to spring for that t-shirt or savor a craft brew at the bar. The data's still compiling for those figures.

With mobile apps like OnTheSnow and tools like SnowCAP™ there to create unforgettable skier / snowboarder experience, the climate can do whatever it wants. ◼

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