NSAA Survey Results and Research Show that Skiers Have Lower Satisfaction and Loyalty than Previous Years

[thetrailboss]

Gee, I wonder why.....

Discuss.

A Worrisome "New Normal"

Ski areas are experiencing lower guest satisfaction and loyalty. They should not be complacent about it.

www.saminfo.com

 

[doublediamond]

Customers being nickel and dimed on everything, with insane walk up rates, lessons sold out months in advance, with grumpy underpaid and overworked front-line workers, and forced to stand in long lift lines leading to overcrowded slopes.

They're unsatisfied and unloyal? You don't say!

Corporate WalMart skiing is ruining the sport and the overall industry as a whole.

 

[4aprice]

Loyalty is an interesting metric. I’ve had more than 1 “home mountain” over my 50 + years of skiing. I’ll soon have a new “home” ( actually a 1 and 1A) when I finally pull the plug on work. But I also have done quite a bit of travel and plan on doing more in retirement.

For us it’s all about the times we are in. We just gave up our Camelback Pa passes for Indy as my wife and I are “free birds” (empty nesters) and can do what we want. Camelback was wonderful for us though. 45 minutes away, raised our children on skis there all through their schooling years, lots of good memories and a lot of fun skiing. But times change. Not only for the mountain, which is a different place then it was, but for us as well.

Ownership changes in the industry have certainly affected the experience. Honestly though most of these places are so big and require so much investment and work I don’t know how they could stay in existence without them. But when answering to shareholders some of the fun things have been chipped away and that has been disappointing to see. We saw that at Camelback when KSL took over and pretty much slashed a great apres ski scene.

Our next “stop” when we stop working will be at Granby Ranch. Obviously a smaller mountain and we think nice community they still have a little independence and retention of a little old time feel. I’ll be loyal to walking out the door and over to the lift especially on a powder morning. Winter Park is 20 min down the road if I need an extra thrill.

 

[thetrailboss]

Loyalty is an interesting metric. I’ve had more than 1 “home mountain” over my 50 + years of skiing. I’ll soon have a new “home” ( actually a 1 and 1A) when I finally pull the plug on work. But I also have done quite a bit of travel and plan on doing more in retirement.

The current mutli-mountain, discount pass model discourages loyalty to one mountain. That is a major flaw of this business model. Unless of course your business is as a conglomerate resort owner.

Ownership changes in the industry have certainly affected the experience. Honestly though most of these places are so big and require so much investment and work I don’t know how they could stay in existence without them. But when answering to shareholders some of the fun things have been chipped away and that has been disappointing to see. We saw that at Camelback when KSL took over and pretty much slashed a great apres ski scene.

I agree that the capital intensive nature of the business leads to the need for bigger ownership entities. I also have to laugh about how many people love IKON but then tell me about how much they hate what has happened to the former Squaw Valley and other KSL entities. Little do they know that KSL is one of two partners in Alterra.

 

[raisingarizona]

Unhappy customers but so many more of them! Why change anything? Profits are at an all-time high!

"I did not share their lack of concern. Based on their input and a deeper study of the Kottke Report and its research tables as well as Guest Research survey data from our clients, I suggested a variety of possible reasons for the declines. These included record skier visits and overcrowding during weekends and holidays, reduced services and labor shortages, window ticket price resistance, higher guest expectations, and reduced emotional engagement of guests."

 

[thetrailboss]

Unhappy customers but so many more of them! Why change anything? Profits are at an all-time high!

"I did not share their lack of concern. Based on their input and a deeper study of the Kottke Report and its research tables as well as Guest Research survey data from our clients, I suggested a variety of possible reasons for the declines. These included record skier visits and overcrowding during weekends and holidays, reduced services and labor shortages, window ticket price resistance, higher guest expectations, and reduced emotional engagement of guests."

I thought about quoting that very paragraph.

 

[Former Sunday Rivah Rat]

Since overcrowding is the biggest negative change in the ski industry since 2020, I am not too worried over not converting enough newbies to the sport. Overall that article seemed more intent on telling the ski industry how to game the survey with new questions than finding and fixing the real problems:
1. The oversold Epic and Ikon passes,
2. combined with the massive WFH shift, and,
3. the boomers retiring.
These seem to be the 3 main reasons I can think of why the typical overcrowded, extra-large ski area satisfaction has gone way down. The only solution I see is new terrain and expansion of the extra-large ski areas. Kudo's to Deer Valley for doing this.

 

[deadheadskier]

I think the multi-mountain pass era threatens the loyalty it was in part designed to achieve.

When it's just one mountain vs another, maybe it's not enough to influence a desire to change. Say I have a bad year on an Okemo only pass. Maybe I consider going to Stratton, but I don't particularly love Stratton either. But if I'm swapping Okemo, Mt Snow and Stowe for Stratton, Killington and Sugarbush, I have more to think and get excited about. Add in all the western destinations and it becomes even more to ponder.

I know more people than not who have cycled through two or more major, multi-mountain passes in the past 6 years. Really the only people I regularly ski with who haven't switched it up are mountain locals or second home owners who are essentially loyal due to geography. I went from 2 years Epic to now 4 years Indy. Only reason I haven't tried iKon is because Loon is their only offering in day trip range for me. If they had another good mountain in NH, maybe I'd consider changing from Indy. I have some friends who alternate years between Epic and iKon based upon western plans.

 

[jimk]

I'm not sure I have sufficient educational background to absorb everything in that article. Pretty dry.

I have a few comments as I try to relate my real life experiences with the graphs:

2023 was an incredible year for snow in Utah and I believe several other western ski regions. You'd think there would have been a decent bump in satisfaction/enjoyment that doesn't seem to be reflected in the charts? Except in Utah it was both wonderful (frequent powder days) and horrible (big crowds and bad traffic). For me it was a challenging, once-in-a-lifetime immersion in storm skiing and I wrote about it HERE.

It's not uncommon for me at Western ski areas to chat with guests (from other regions) who will state something like "this is one of my all-time great ski days" presumably due to good snow and exciting terrain, not because of a fancy lodge or even small lift lines. Whereas you don't usually hear a comment like that about a small ski area in the East or Midwest? How do I reconcile this with the article that seems to indicate satisfaction levels are higher at smaller/feeder hills compared to extra-large ski areas?

Loyalty and emotional connection: for me that comes as much from the general experience of skiing (I can be happy on any ski hill) and skiing with friends (I can enjoy the company of ski buddies on any hill). I consider Snowbird, UT to be my home mountain and I benefit from knowing the lay of the land there. But I really like visiting other ski areas too and greatly appreciate having an Ikon pass. I guess the point I'm making is that these connection factors come from within a person as much as what a ski area can offer with frilly guest experience bells and whistles.

 

[4aprice]

I think the multi-mountain pass era threatens the loyalty it was in part designed to achieve.

When it's just one mountain vs another, maybe it's not enough to influence a desire to change. Say I have a bad year on an Okemo only pass. Maybe I consider going to Stratton, but I don't particularly love Stratton either. But if I'm swapping Okemo, Mt Snow and Stowe for Stratton, Killington and Sugarbush, I have more to think and get excited about. Add in all the western destinations and it becomes even more to ponder.

I know more people than not who have cycled through two or more major, multi-mountain passes in the past 6 years. Really the only people I regularly ski with who haven't switched it up are mountain locals or second home owners who are essentially loyal due to geography. I went from 2 years Epic to now 4 years Indy. Only reason I haven't tried iKon is because Loon is their only offering in day trip range for me. If they had another good mountain in NH, maybe I'd consider changing from Indy. I have some friends who alternate years between Epic and iKon based upon western plans.

I'm not sure how much the loyalty factor counts. Like I said I have had a slew of home mountains over the years, enjoyed them all, but the reason those places were chosen had more to do with the places I was in my life at that time. The desire to visit and ski other mountains has always existed as well and I have just about covered all of Northern New England and good parts of Utah and Colorado and enjoyed it all. I always thought that when I had a single mountain pass (take for example the Camelback PA Pass) that it would be really nice if they could have teamed with a mountain or 2 up north to offer incentives to ski there. Would have driven some travel by me but what I was thinking about was on a much smaller scale then what Epic and Ikon and Maxx Pass before that, have done.

My skiing habits haven't really changed too much. For the most part I'm still a weekend warrior (here in the Northeast) who tries to get in as many days as possible be it locally or overnighting. I don't feel like I'm not being loyal to say Camelback (I still get 7 days there on my Ikon) just taking advantage of the opportunities these products offer. Our Ikon passes are payed off by our western vacations alone anyways. Very excited for the up coming season with a combination of Ikon and Indy and plan on taking advantage of them. My future will continue with Ikon at the least because it is the only pass at Winter Park, Copper and Steamboat, all within day trip distance from the condo. At some point we will supplement that with an Epic to hit those resorts in the area as well.