vacation. “In Europe, if you look at the media, they are always saying nobody wants to go to Italy to the beaches any- more or to Spain because it’s far too hot, especially in the summer season,” said Volpert. “So, people are really looking for a joyful day in the mountains.” Oberstdorf Kleinwalsertal (OK) Mountains—a group of seven ski areas on the border of Germany and Austria— has embraced the four-season potential of its ski areas, with lifts turning year- round and F&B as a critical piece of the guest experience. “In August, Oberstdorf is fully booked, just as it would be in January,” said Volpert, adding that the group also sees the potential for growth in the shoulder season. “Whether it is April, May, September or October, families come out and visit us.” They are looking for “wellbeing,” he added. More than 95 percent of OK Mountains’ guests are destination visi- tors from within Germany, he said. For them, “it’s not about being a sports fanat- ic, it’s not about working out, it’s about spending a relaxed day on the mountain. F&B is incredibly important to this guest, and that means traditional, local, home- made food.” To that end, a relaxed, joyful day on the mountain in summer might look like a two‑hour hike, then a farmhouse beer and cheese stop at an alpine hut, and a stroll to the next refuge, said Volpert. Of course, it’s not all about food. OK Mountains’ has also built its activity infrastructure around the same relaxed- in-nature ethos that drives its visitors, he said. “So, we don’t want to see, for instance, any plastic up there on the mountain.” Simple products, big payoff. Volpert highlighted two seemingly basic offerings at OK Mountains that outper- form their simplicity. The first is Nord- wandsteig, a free, 100-meter steel catwalk at the summit of Nebelhorn, adjacent to a recently reconstructed restaurant, that allows folks to take in the views. Part of what makes it successful, said Volpert, is that it provides easy access to the high alpine. “You can have the look and feel of an alpine pioneer, more or less,” without the need for the skill, he said. The other is a marble run, or ball
track, set up along a 2 km hiking trail, with five 100 m segments down which kids can roll wooden marbles as the fam- ily walks the trail. OK Mountains added the product 10 years ago, and Volpert said the investment has paid off multifold. “If you want a family with two or three kids to hike for an hour or two, you need a great product for the kids,” he explained.
ness-driven travel can bring folks to a location, and they’ll seek other tourism activities while there. Niche offerings like ghost and vampire tours, for example, are growing in popularity. Additionally, she said, “Research shows that people want to do the things that they love doing, but they also want to eat local things, they want to eat authentic things.”
THE TRENDS
THINK REGIONALLY, ACT COLLABORATIVELY
There are some common themes across the trends Downes and Volpert identified in their respective audiences, and these are echoed in Arival’s data, which track popular “experience” categories. According to a survey of 7,500 travel- ers, the fastest growing categories in the U.S. and globally are: • Wellness (e.g., coaching, hot springs, Nordic spas) • Culinary (e.g., street‑food walks, dis- tillery tours, “food‑plus‑activity” pair- ings) • Events (e.g., concerts, festivals, sport- ing events) • Experiences with locals / people with local knowledge (e.g., ski with a local Olympian, hike with a local naturalist) • Thematic tours (e.g., photography tours, heritage walks, ghost tours, horseback riding)
Capitalizing on these trends means rec- ognizing where your ski area fits in a larger travel ecosystem. For example, said Downes, when it comes to captur- ing international visitors from the wider Asian market, the first objective is to get them to choose Japan, then Niseko, and then the resort, Hanazono. “Right now, our average length of stay is only around 2.2 nights,” he said. “There’s not enough really to keep them longer.” So, it’s important not to fence customers. “It’s not about trying to pro- tect our own turf and keep people with- in our walls,” said Downes. Instead, the goal is to position Hanazono Resort as a hub for a two‑to‑three‑hour activity radi- us (surfing, sea kayaking, fishing, 30 golf courses) so they stay longer. Soft experiences —place-based activities that create memories, rather than offerings that can be replicated else- where—support that effort. A nighttime “mountain lights” art walk called Pris-
Elaborating on the trends, Visser said that experiences like event- or well-
A farm-to-table pizza-making activity near Hanazono Resort in Japan capitalizes on the growing interest in culinary travel experiences.
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