[News & Views]
and offers a “Mission Affordable Pass” at all its areas. In Colorado, Loveland and Ski Cooper also implemented price freezes. Sugarbush, Vt., offered a deeply dis- counted, unrestricted all-mountain lift ticket for $99 that included a bonus day later in the season. Red Lodge Mountain, Mont., launched Any Pass Days, two-for- one lift tickets for passholders from any ski area, worldwide, on select days. Alterra offered a “kids ski free” week in December. It was a mostly midweek offer in early season and, of course, a tick- eted adult would need to accompany the 12-and-under crowd. Nonetheless, we hope it was widely successful. Antelope Butte, Wyo., went all-in on kids this winter with free season passes for anyone under 18. While the success of these efforts has yet be measured, the effort is there. And that’s reason for optimism. “Despite what some may see as the underlying gloom of my concerns in these musings, I would say the ski industry can be well positioned for the future—if we learn to change and adapt,” said Rowan. It’s a good sentiment, so we’ll leave him with the last word. 2 THE ENDURING IMPACT OF THE BABY BOOMERS
ICYMI: Headline News (from saminfo.com)
true, in the past few years, they have done more than that: they’ve kept them- selves on the slopes, and with greater fre- quency. According to NSAA’s Kottke End of Season & Guest Experience Report , boom- ers accounted for 15 percent of visits in 2023-24, up from 12 percent in 2020-21 and on par with 2018-19. At some point, boomers—the oldest of whom will turn 80 in another year— will finally drop out of snowsports. They have postponed their departure far lon- ger than many observers expected 10 or 15 years ago. But time catches up with all of us eventually. Then what? Indy Pass Acquires Black Mountain in New Hampshire, Plans For a Co- op Model October 5 Homewood Suspends Operations for this Winter October 14 Mountain Towns 2030 Climate Solutions Summit Calls for Collective Action October 24 Blue Mountain Resort Assists Crews Fighting Nearby Wildfire November 7
losing youth and teens in our sport.” The under-25 group comprised 40 percent of skiing and riding visits in 2013-14, but just 34 percent in 2023-24. This demographic is, by far, the larg- est source of newcomers to snowsports. It would seem that future-proofing our sports by feeding the pipeline with these newbies should be a major focus of the Growth Committee. Another key sign: Lesson volume is down nearly 25 percent from 2013-14. Children’s lessons, a key part of the pipe- line, are down nearly 20 percent. The short story is that lessons dropped near- ly 50 percent during the pandemic, and have not fully rebounded. In speaking with operators anec- dotally, another concern is determining what portion of the 2022-23 ski/ride pop- ulation (which NSAA estimates at 11.6 million) dropped out in 2023-24 (down to an estimated 10.6 million). Was it just a regional thing tied to snow, particularly the lack of it? Was it lower-level skiers/ riders and beginners? The latter might help explain the drop in snowsports school customers. Given the importance of this total-par- ticipants data point, the Growth Com- mittee is exploring how to get this metric moving in a positive direction again. Incoming NSAA president Michael Reitzell said part of his focus will be to take the data NSAA produces and dig into why we are seeing declines (total participants, especially younger partic- ipants, should be atop the agenda), and Western Resorts Start Spinning Lifts November 8 Alterra Mountain Company Closes on Arapahoe Basin Acquisition November 19 Gold Medal Snowmaking Effort Helps Killington Pull Off 8th World Cup December 4 Vail Reports Season Pass Sales Decline, First Quarter Results December 11
By Rick Kahl
3 A PARTICIPATION CLIFF?
Wonder who’s been keeping the lift lines full? Look no further than the baby boomers, as has been the case for most of the past 50 years. Initially, the boomers were introduced to skiing in the 1960s and their sprawling numbers helped fuel the industry’s rapid growth. By the 1980s, they were introducing their Gen X and millennial kids to snowsports. Back in 1996, SAM predicted that boomers “will dominate population growth in the twenty-first century, espe- cially among the most affluent segments. ... The future of skiing depends on keep- ing baby boomers on the slopes while introducing their children to the sport.” Well, mission accomplished. Recent thinking was that boomers had remained important for bringing their grandkids into snowsports. While
By Rick Kahl
The Growth Committee, set up during Kelly Pawlak’s tenure as president of NSAA, had the right idea. Get smart peo- ple in a room and figure out how to keep a healthy pipeline of future skiers and snowboarders. The pandemic sidelined their efforts for a while, but there is renewed interest to get back to the task, and there are pressing reasons to do so, namely troubling data trends. Growth Committee co-chair Dave Belin told SAM , “The data is clear, we are underperforming in the under-25 demo- graphic, and we need to fix that—or at least start by understanding why we are
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