Killington: "maximize the spend."

[Highway Star]

From a rutland Herald article:

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20090705/NEWS04/907050379

Killington Resort spokesman Tom Horrocks confirmed that the goal of Killington's village is to "maximize the spend."

"The folks that used to be the customer base here 15 years ago are now going to those big ski villages," he said. "We don't want to look at solely increasing the amount of people that come here," he said. "We all (the resort and community) should be thinking of increasing the amount of money that people spend while they are here."

Slick, real slick. Still stuck on the yield..........isn't this a ski resort where people are supposed to enjoy things like.............skiing?

 

[SkiDork]

From a rutland Herald article:

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20090705/NEWS04/907050379



Slick, real slick. Still stuck on the yield..........isn't this a ski resort where people are supposed to enjoy things like.............skiing?

Plus I disagree that K's customer base was the ski village type...

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

I want to check out a big ski village..that would be sicktarded!!

 

[thetrailboss]

Not sure what is bad about that. Every ski area wants to keep people on the mountain and get people to spend. It's a business.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Plus I disagree that K's customer base was the ski village type...

To me Killington is like the Hunter of Vermont...agressive city types who party hard and ski a little..going from a million skier days to 700,000 won't help/..

 

[Highway Star]

Not sure what is bad about that. Every ski area wants to keep people on the mountain and get people to spend. It's a business.

No, it's obscenely bad PR, and absolutely the wrong way to get people feel good about spending money.

The way to get people to spend, is to offer the best service, good to great variety and value in food, lodging, skiing experience, activities, etc. That is the proper attitude and focus.............not "how are we going to best remove money from our customers?"

Killington Resort, as businesses go, is basicly one of the biggest rip-off's in the east.

 

[skiadikt]

Plus I disagree that K's customer base was the ski village type...

agree. it's always been a ski house/party animal/weekend warrior type place. the mid-week business however has taken a significant hit compared to 20 yrs ago as those folks have gone elsewhere. but i'm definitely not in the "build a village and they will come" camp. sure it's business and the bottom is yield but tom's comments seem a bit mercenary.

 

[thetrailboss]

No, it's obscenely bad PR, and absolutely the wrong way to get people feel good about spending money.

It may not have been the best thing to have said, but I still read it less cynically.

The way to get people to spend, is to offer the best service, good to great variety and value in food, lodging, skiing experience, activities, etc. That is the proper attitude and focus

+ 1.

.............not "how are we going to best remove money from our customers?"

Well, I didn't read that from his comments.

 

[tcharron]

No, it's obscenely bad PR, and absolutely the wrong way to get people feel good about spending money.

The way to get people to spend, is to offer the best service, good to great variety and value in food, lodging, skiing experience, activities, etc. That is the proper attitude and focus.............not "how are we going to best remove money from our customers?"

Killington Resort, as businesses go, is basicly one of the biggest rip-off's in the east.

I've always wondered, HS..

What in gods name DO you do for a living. You present yourself as being such an expert in all things, well.. Yea, in ALL things. :-D

They have a point, albiet one that I think is misplaced. People go out west to ski areas like that. Perhaps not you, or I, or anyone else who may actually talk about skiing in the summer time. But the same people who might, for instance, go to DisneyWorld. Just to *go* there. Do you really think they go out considering the snow quality? Hell no. They buy the marketting fluff! So, they're trying to make themselves the DisneyWorld ski area of the east. Good for them. Hope they have fun with that.

But on another note.

Dude, we friggen get it. You're jumping up and down like a Jack Russel Terrier going for a treat isn't going to change anything. I think Burger King should go back to their old fries, the new ones suck. Should I start posting around the entire world how bad they suck?

HS = Killington hate. You've become an description. You know, when we come accross your name in a post, we immediatly don't care about anything you wrote, we just dig around to see what the loud mouth is going to say next. Has anyone ever once actually asked your opinion? Ever wonder why that is?

 

[mondeo]

No, it's obscenely bad PR, and absolutely the wrong way to get people feel good about spending money.

The way to get people to spend, is to offer the best service, good to great variety and value in food, lodging, skiing experience, activities, etc. That is the proper attitude and focus.............not "how are we going to best remove money from our customers?"

Killington Resort, as businesses go, is basicly one of the biggest rip-off's in the east.

agree. it's always been a ski house/party animal/weekend warrior type place. the mid-week business however has taken a significant hit compared to 20 yrs ago as those folks have gone elsewhere. but i'm definitely not in the "build a village and they will come" camp. sure it's business and the bottom is yield but tom's comments seem a bit mercenary.

As far as Tom's comments are concerned, remember that this was in the Rutland Herald. PR isn't just with your customer base, it's also with your community. As far as Rutland/Killington residents are concerned, getting the most money from customers possible is a good thing. It means more jobs at the resort and more spending off the resort. He's trying to sell approval of the village plan for the planning board, not sell tickets. He probably could have done a better job recognizing that the statement would be picked up outside of his target audience, but let's face it, the vast majority of Killington's customer base isn't going to ever hear those comments.

And as a business, the question is always "how can we get the most money possible?" Everything else is a means to an end.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

I'm guessing HighwayStar is a fluffer for gay porn movies..his top 30 steeze gets the guys ready for action..

 

[WWF-VT]

The title of the article is "Ski village plan splits a community" and does offer some interesting insight into the ongoing saga of Killlington looking to build out a village and the economic impact on the area. Too bad Highway Star presented the quote out of context

 

[RootDKJ]

I've always wondered, HS..

What in gods name DO you do for a living. You present yourself as being such an expert in all things, well.. Yea, in ALL things. :-D

+1

 

[Highway Star]

As far as Tom's comments are concerned, remember that this was in the Rutland Herald. PR isn't just with your customer base, it's also with your community. As far as Rutland/Killington residents are concerned, getting the most money from customers possible is a good thing. It means more jobs at the resort and more spending off the resort. He's trying to sell approval of the village plan for the planning board, not sell tickets. He probably could have done a better job recognizing that the statement would be picked up outside of his target audience, but let's face it, the vast majority of Killington's customer base isn't going to ever hear those comments.

And as a business, the question is always "how can we get the most money possible?" Everything else is a means to an end.

Problem is, if they are allowed to "maximize the spend" at the Village, that leaves little left over for the Access Road, Rutland, etc. There was an analysis done last year that tried to gaage how much additional traffic would be needed to compensate for the loss of business to the village, for the remainder of the town to see sustained revenue. It's a good read, but they are still just guessing.

You can be SURE though, that the village will be pulling in the primo vacation customers, the people paying the most to stay in the Village, Grand Hotel, Mountain Green, and Trail Creek, etc. They will shop and dine in the village first, before they even bother with the access road (blight).

Stowe, OTOH, is entirely different. They did NOT build a village at base of the mountain that was intended replace the existing town of stowe. They have a premium hotel, some condo/houses, and a new base lodge. No major shopping area I'm aware of. People staying in that hotel can remain there, during their stay, but I would imagin it gets boring and expensive. Most people still go the very attactive town of Stowe.

I think the best comparison to be made is to the STRATTON Village. As far as I know, that's the most substantial in Vermont, and compareable to what we will see at Killington. It's large, has a wide variety of shops (expensive) and resteraunts (reasonable). Imagine if that was ploped down at the base of Killington? It would pull a very large amount of business away from the access road immediately. Major difference at Stratton, is that the only major business area close by is manchester, which is a signifigant distance.

Oh, and the parking is pretty crappy at Stratton.

 

[deadheadskier]

Killington Resort, as businesses go, is basicly one of the biggest rip-off's in the east.

yet, you keep spending money there. :lol:

 

[Highway Star]

yet, you keep spending money there. :lol:

Actually, I spend as little as possible at Killington Resort. Their overall yield per skier visit off me for the past five years averages out to roughly $8/day.

How? That's about 240 ski days at the K, 3 years of bronze passes, two years of bond passes ($0 to Killington), plus the occasional food, bev and retail purchase, plus a few tickets when I was blacked out. Ok.....maybe more like $10 per day.

However, I do spend much more in the town of Killington.

Thanks for playing.

I did buy a full pass this year from Killington, so their yield from me this year should go up to around $20-30 per day. If they gave me a good reason to spend more money there at the resort, I would...............................................

 

[thetrailboss]

yet, you keep spending money there. :lol:

I think that the point is that if you were as upset as you were, you'd spend $0, HS.

 

[Highway Star]

I think that the point is that if you were as upset as you were, you'd spend $0, HS.

I like the skiing at Killington, in general, and have a pretty good time there, regardless of how they run the mountain. It bothers me that they don't run the mountain particularly well.....

 

[thorski]

I like the skiing at Killington, in general, and have a pretty good time there, regardless of how they run the mountain. It bothers me that they don't run the mountain particularly well.....

If only the people who owned ski-sundown owned killington.

 

[deadheadskier]

I think that the point is that if you were as upset as you were, you'd spend $0, HS.

correct