A young skier enjoys powder snow at Sunlight Mountain, near Glenwood Springs, Colorado. As the mountain resort real estate boom slows, Colorado ski areas are focusing on improving services and amenities for skiers and snowboarders.
By BOB BERWYN
Look for a full story coming up in the Summit Daily News.
Colorado ski resorts are gearing up for the season, with the start of snowmaking only a couple of weeks away at areas like Loveland and Copper Mountain. In a pre-season announcement, the state’s ski area trade group, Colorado Ski Country USA, highlighted some of the improvements around the High Country.
Traditionally, the state ski industry announces resort improvements this time of year. This time, the news is generally not about flashy new lifts and terrain expansions. Those large-scale projects were at least partly financed by profits from resort real estate sales, and those days are gone, according to long-time industry observers, including Eagle County based Jerry Jones.
Along with executive stints at Keystone and a few other areas, Jones has had a hand in Colorado mountain real estate for many years, and he’s wondering how the large ski companies will ride out the economic tides. Even with signs of improvement in consumer confidence, Jones reckons it could take quite a while for the resort real estate market to bounce back.
Jones is not alone in his assessment. Last spring, during the Mountain Travel Symposium at Keystone, Vail chief Rob Katz famously said, “The fat years are over.”
And Intrawest leader Bill Jensen, a mountain operations guy from way back, including stints at Breckenridge and Vail, was also quoted in the press as saying that the real estate market hasn’t just stalled.
“It’s disappeared,” he said at a business conference in Canada last year. Jensen said ski area operators should focus on doing what they do best — providing an unmatched outdoor experience.
Similarly, Jones said resorts need to increase their revenue from day-to-day operations in the coming seasons, and some of the improvements announced by Colorado Ski Country may signify that trend. Improvements are aimed at improving ease, comfort and quality for guests — even if they aren’t buying condos.
Responding a drop in revenue from food sales and ski school last season, some of the local resorts have designed special promotions to boost revenues in areas where they flagged last year. Even areas that posted strong skier-visit numbers saw ski school and food sales drop.
So Keystone, for example, will offer a $225 season-long lesson pass, good for unlimited class sessions. Vail Resorts also emphasized better, healthier food in the company’s many on-mountain restaurants.
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