KILLINGTON/PICO: AZ Challenge 2007 Response/Feedback Thread

Chris's responses are in:

http://skiing.alpinezone.com/articles/challenge/2007/response.htm?resort=killington

Overall, decent responses.

But I don't personally believe providing less services on off days will lead to what they expect. I believe the off day small crowd will simply become even smaller, causing a greater reduction in income on those days, causing a greater reduction in services provided, causing a great reduc............

tcharron said:

Overall, decent responses.

But I don't personally believe providing less services on off days will lead to what they expect. I believe the off day small crowd will simply become even smaller, causing a greater reduction in income on those days, causing a greater reduction in services provided, causing a great reduc............

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Agreed. I think that some of these actions lead to a viscious circle as you described.

Overall: meh.

I agree with tcharron, and as for the other answers, good to see that they probably aren't going to groom everything, and that they understand the issues with trail and lift design. Other than that, there isn't much there, and I don't like their secrecy about everything they do.

"The length of the season and the operating schedules for lodges are not drivers of our brand position or financial success."

he just doesn't have an understanding of what killington is all about. i think he's underestimating the importance of the longer season to many of us being at k in the first place. that WAS a huge part of the brand in the 80's & 90's. whether they can reinvent the brand remains to be seen.

as for the lodges, while i don't like the message closing them sends, i do think the skyeship 1 & to a lesser extent, pico should be open 7 days. i think great eastern, especially below snowshed crossover is arguably one of the better beginner/family runs in the east, much better than great northern, and is an essential killington run.

Some good, some bad.

I thought his answer on grooming was good. Given his background, I'd expect nothing less. His remark that the length of the season is "not a driver of our brand position" is unfortunate. Driving your car off a cliff is also unfortunate. Sounds like they plan on doing more "infrastructure" improvements in the short term, lift changes will be longer term. If infrastructure means fixing the snowmaking, I'm all for it. If it's fixing the bathrooms, well, I'm not interested. The short term goal, "right sizing" Killington for the existing market conditions is also "unfortunate". First of all, that's a term thats fallen into disfavor because everyone knows what that means, and I agree with others that without positive changes, Killington will continue to lose market share and continue its death spiral into mediocrity.

On the plus side, I think he's clearly trying, but the decision making process needs work. They clearly need to get buy in at all levels for the changes they are contemplating. I think he badly underestimated the passion of Killington skiers for "their" resort, and as a result created an "unfortunate" PR fiasco.

Total misunderstanding of how Killington operates.

skiadikt said:

i think he's underestimating the importance of the longer season to many of us being at k in the first place. that WAS a huge part of the brand in the 80's & 90's. whether they can reinvent the brand remains to be seen.

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Agreed, and interestingly enough...it seems that same period of time was when Killington was most successful and probably, most profitable......

I thought the responses were complete and well written and Mr. Nyberg gets big props from me for responding in a timely fashion. In fact, I think he was one of, if not the quickest respondent this year. He obviously took this seriously. Finally, I'm very content with the response to my question regarding OL and the grooming policy. The response to boston_e's question regarding all the crossovers was very encouraging as well.

As far as how their overall "right sizing" approach will shake out remains to be seen. The "length of the season and the operating schedules for lodges are not drivers of our brand position or financial success" comment is probably pretty disturbing to most though. That seems to be the single biggest complaint that tangibly affects the most number of Killington skiers. However, the "over time the Killington brand position may change" comments leaves them a bit of an out here. Hopefully, they'll get things in order and we'll see a return to an extended season in years to come. It certainly is going to be interesting to watch all this unfold.

K-Mart has a real K-mart style manager now..
and what newpy said

I don't like the majority of his answers, but certainly respect him answering them on both AZ and KZ. The true result will come during the season and then we'll see how their decisions changed the nature of the mountain.

Weaksauce.......he did a really good job at telling us nothing.

Right sizing? Long season isn't part of the brand???

Whew.....good luck Chris, good luck.

I liked to hear that they have relocated / new / revised lifts and trail merging in the works, and I liked what he had to say about the grooming / bump situation.

Overall about what I expected for answers, but I at least got the feel as if they do want and plan to make the mountain better long term.

As far as the improvements for this year, not much on that list is getting me super excited.

Newpylong said:

Total misunderstanding of how Killington operates.

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I would tend to agree, though I would phrase it 'Total misundertanding of Killington's soul'


I'm no snowman and am not privy to the financials of Killington's past, but I would think the proper approach would be to bring Killington back up to a near million skier visit per year resort. It sounds to me like they'd rather make X million dollars servicing 600K skiers per year, than the same X million dollars per year servicing 1 mil.

I think due to how big it is, it's too late for that mentality. Killingonton is basically the Manhattan of ski resorts. What people hate about it - the crowding, the attitude etc, is also what makes it what it is and what people who go there also love about it. It does have a certain energy to it, much like Manhattan. Beacuse it is SO large and SO spread out, I don't think they can tighten up their operation to be a more country club type atmosphere serving the rich such as Stratton.

Killington was built to be the beast of the east. I really don't see how it can re-invent itself and be as succesful as it once was in a more toned down version.

One question I didn't ask, but looking back, I wish I did was concerning staffing. They say they want to open up full operations on weekends and holidays. That will take a TON of employees to pull off, as it always has. By reducing their services so DRASTICALLY midweek, how the heck do they think they are going to retain employees?

I think what's lost on POWD'R is the concept of the lost leaders in the ski business. Running K1 midweek, keeping Pico open midweek, having the longest season - those are all lost leaders that enhance the brand and improve peak season revenues at Killington. I can understand cutting corners to save money to re-invest in the resort, but I really think they are taking it to the Extreme.

I guess we'll all find out if there model for success works in a few years.

deadheadskier said:

One question I didn't ask, but looking back, I wish I did was concerning staffing. They say they want to open up full operations on weekends and holidays. That will take a TON of employees to pull off, as it always has. By reducing their services so DRASTICALLY midweek, how the heck do they think they are going to retain employees?

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Well, they fired a large number of the full time employees a few months ago, and to my knowledge, a few more have left on their own, and now they probably can't get much cheap labor with the visa thing, so maybe we'll see Nyburg himself out manning the lifts on weekends, because I don't think many locals have any desire to work for them.

Phew I am sure glad that #3 on his top 5 list is

"More energy and activity weekdays at Snowshed"

That certainly would draw me to return to K-mart as Snowshed is the reason most of us skiers love the place.

Hey I can think of lots of times that I've been out on the slopes thinking "gosh I wish the Snowshed lodge had more energy midweek".

tree_skier said:

Phew I am sure glad that #3 on his top 5 list is

"More energy and activity weekdays at Snowshed"

That certainly would draw me to return to K-mart as Snowshed is the reason most of us skiers love the place.

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Totally agree. By moving the main mid-week lodges to Snowshed and closing K-1 lodge you are forcing better skiers to ski down the green crossover trails to get to Snowshed for lunch forcing a 2 chair lift back to the better slopes that you really want to ski.

Getting to Snowshed (and then back to the main lifts) can be a pain. By not having the K1 lodge open mid week they are making the situation way worse.

Haven't skied at Killington in nearly 30 years and don't have much intention to any time soon.

With that said, it seems like the new ownership is wrestling with a classic business problem - determining what components - trails, base lodges, services, lifts - are profitable & integral to a customer experience and what aren't. From what I read, it sounds like a lot of this analysis just wasn't conducted or didn't factor into prior management's decision making policy.

The focus on infrastructure is the right one - build a strong foundation before building the house analogy! The reality is the selling price of Killington ($85mm) which included Pico and a bunch of acreage (am I right here?) indicates it was not wildly profitable enterprise.

To paraphrase someone else on this board - "there ain't no free lunches." It only makes sense that the new ownership is acting in a economically rational manner. Hopefully, it works out well for all the stakeholders - the loyal long time customers, home owners and new ownership.

I'm a Killington skier and belieive the mountian is more important than the civil amenities... and look forward to skiing there with existing conditions or upgrades... remember the more you ask for the more you pay...