Skier visits

[Sparky]

I don’t know if this has been discussed before, but after reading several articles on skier’s visits I’m a little confused as to how “skier’s visits” are calculated. It seems rather obvious that daily ticket sales would be included, however how do they count things like, season tickets, voucher deals, package deals were everybody gets a ticket, but now everyone uses them. Is there a standard set by NSAA, or do the mountains just calculate it any way they want?

 

[WWF-VT]

Skier visits are defined by the NSAA as representing one person visiting a ski area for all or any part of
a day or night for the purpose of skiing, snowboarding, or other downhill sliding. Skier visits include fullday,
half-day, night, complimentary, adult, child, season pass and any other type of ticket that gives a
skier/snowboarder the use of an area's facilities.

 

[drjeff]

With respect to season passes and total visits, it's been a number of years, but it my recall isn't too foggy (and if any industry personel want to correct me PLEASE feel free too), but there's a set # visits (independent of how many days one used their pass) that gets figured in to the total number of visits per area per year (example - say the number was 20 days and the area sold 1,000 passes, then then 20,000 of the total number of days reported were attributed to season pass sales.

 

[riverc0il]

With respect to season passes and total visits, it's been a number of years, but it my recall isn't too foggy (and if any industry personel want to correct me PLEASE feel free too), but there's a set # visits (independent of how many days one used their pass) that gets figured in to the total number of visits per area per year (example - say the number was 20 days and the area sold 1,000 passes, then then 20,000 of the total number of days reported were attributed to season pass sales.

Would be interesting to see if season pass price factored into actual skier visits. Perhaps people would feel like they had to ski an area more to "get their money's worth" on an expensive pass compared to an inexpensive one? Or would skiers quit on an inexpensive pass early after they already hit the break even point? I doubt individual areas would be willing to give up that type of data for analysis.

High or low snow year would also be a determining factor of days for sure even though it is not factored in. I used my season pass, when I had one, significantly more when the snow was better for a greater number of days during the season.

Areas with scanners should be able to report this number without using an average. So that would further fog the statistic if actual numbers are being disregarded in favor of a standard industry average.

A large change over from day ticket / vacationers to season pass holders could also cause some bad data (numbers that were always firm before that are now averaged out).

Overall, I am not impressed with this number except for big season to season swings.

 

[ski_resort_observer]

Before the use of ticket scanners it was an educated guess with day ticket numbers, vouchers and other ski tickets users added up for the day and a formula for things like season pass holders. Even comps people have to generally get a day ticket to get on a lift.

I wonder how many ski hills now use some form of scanners at the lifts? I assume most of the major resorts use scanners now, what about the mid and small sized hills. Do large ski hills like Wildcat or Saddleback use scanners?

Do places like Sundown, Berkshire East, Jiminy, Shawnee, Black, Cranmore, West Mt use them?

 

[vonski]

Sundown uses scanners.

 

[Terry]

Sunday River used to use scanners but haven't since Boyne took over. Shawnee Peak scans once in a while on busy weekends.

 

[Northernflight]

Sunday River used to use scanners but haven't since Boyne took over

Sunday River was using them when I was there in February, but only at the main areas, they didn't do it for most of the lifts.

 

[Riverskier]

Sunday River was using them when I was there in February, but only at the main areas, they didn't do it for most of the lifts.

Interesting. I have 100+ days over the 3 seasons since Boyne took over and have never seen them scanning anywhere.

Saddleback wasn't scanning when I was there MLK weekend. That was the first and only time I have skied there though.

 

[Vortex]

SR and Scanners. 200 plus days at the River in the last 3 years.
Never seen a scanner. Might have been a promotional event or something.

 

[drjeff]

I know that Mount Snow just scans on the primary base area lifts - once you get out of the base area, there's not a scanner to be seen on the mountain

 

[Glenn]

I know that Mount Snow just scans on the primary base area lifts - once you get out of the base area, there's not a scanner to be seen on the mountain

And they don't seem to scan everyone every time. Logistically, I know that's a pretty hard thing to do.

 

[Highway Star]

Skier visits are defined by the NSAA as representing one person visiting a ski area for all or any part of
a day or night for the purpose of skiing, snowboarding, or other downhill sliding. Skier visits include fullday,
half-day, night, complimentary, adult, child, season pass and any other type of ticket that gives a
skier/snowboarder the use of an area's facilities.

This.

However, the more interesting metrics are Ticket Yield per visit and Overall Yield per visit. That's ticket or overall revenue divided by visits. Ticket yield will be much less than the day ticket rate, due to discounts, comps, passes, etc.

 

[Edd]

My girlfriend works for Booth Creek and she's baffled that Boyne rarely scans. ASC was much more on top of that.

 

[ski_resort_observer]

Very interesting...I wonder if the Loaf, another CNL/Boyne resort, use scanners. BTW, The Bush uses scanners, got new scanners this past season which made a big diference. Generally speaking, aside from all the obvious reasons to use them discussed here often they are also a useful tool for the managers(especially guest service) since they can see the data anytime during the day. The Bush only scans the base lifts, everyday.

I would think a big company like CNL that owns a bunch of resorts would be using scanners.

 

[thetrailboss]

Very interesting...I wonder if the Loaf, another CNL/Boyne resort, use scanners. BTW, The Bush uses scanners, got new scanners this past season which made a big diference. Generally speaking, aside from all the obvious reasons to use them discussed here often they are also a useful tool for the managers(especially guest service) since they can see the data anytime during the day. The Bush only scans the base lifts, everyday.

I would think a big company like CNL that owns a bunch of resorts would be using scanners.

When I skied at Sunday River and Sugarloaf this season (sacrilege, I know ) there was no scanning at any of the lifts.

 

[drjeff]

Very interesting...I wonder if the Loaf, another CNL/Boyne resort, use scanners. BTW, The Bush uses scanners, got new scanners this past season which made a big diference. Generally speaking, aside from all the obvious reasons to use them discussed here often they are also a useful tool for the managers(especially guest service) since they can see the data anytime during the day. The Bush only scans the base lifts, everyday.

I would think a big company like CNL that owns a bunch of resorts would be using scanners.

My thoughts too. I would think that the mgt would want to know things about the data that can be derrived from scanning (especially the data on season pass holder use)

 

[Northernflight]

SR and Scanners. 200 plus days at the River in the last 3 years.
Never seen a scanner. Might have been a promotional event or something.

I could be mixing a memory from a few years ago but I thought they were. Does anyone know exactly what they use the data for? Is it just to see how crowded a lift is besides the loss prevention side?