RENTAL
DRESSING FOR SUCCESS
Cataloochee, N.C., displays a selection of outerwear as part of its robust rental apparel program.
Rental outerwear can improve the guest experience and the bottom line.
By Iseult Devlin
The Outerwear Rental Market So, how big is the outwear rental market? That’s hard to say. Snowsports Indus- tries America’s (SIA) Consumer Panel of Winter Sports Enthusiasts found fami- lies planned to rent gear more frequently in winter 2024-25 versus the year prior, at 25 percent compared to 17 percent. “In general, the market demand is growing for a quality rental option,” says Leslie Thomas, merchandise manager for outdoor retailer Evo’s Canadian stores in Whistler, British Columbia. “As a resort destination, we have a lot of guests who either don’t want to pack heavy outerwear for their trip or they get to the resort and find the clothing they brought isn’t sufficient for the condi- tions,” she explains. The stores partnered with Gore-Tex to meet the demand. Demand for On Demand. The Gore- Tex service has fueled market growth. The program started during Covid and has doubled during the last couple of years. There were 20 locations offering the program during the 2024-25 season, mostly at ski resort equipment rental
areas but some in retail stores.
The relatively small rental appar- el market seems poised for growth. Resorts in the Southeast, Midwest, and elsewhere that draw largely on warm-weather and/or urban popula- tions have long recognized the value of offering clothing rentals, primarily for guests who don’t own winter out- erwear. Now, resorts are discovering that more experienced visitors are happy to skip the hassle of packing and carrying apparel and simply rent at the resort. Many of these resorts partner with an outside vendor, and that vendor, more often than not, is Gore-Tex with its Outerwear On De- mand program. “Outerwear rentals is another means of letting first-time skiers and meeting attendees (as well as those who accidental- ly left their jacket at home) the opportuni- ty to try the sport out a few times before committing to purchasing all the equip- ment required for our sport,” says Dave Fields, president of Snowbird, Utah, which recently began offering rental apparel through the On Demand program.
Snowbird, Killington, Vt., and sev- eral Alterra mountains now offer the product, and Evo has it in some retail locations including Salt Lake City, Black- comb/Whistler, and Snoqualmie Pass in Washington. In addition, New York City’s premier sporting goods store, Par- agon, partnered with Gore-Tex last year. Snowbird offered the program only in its best-staffed, best-trained rental location for the first year, to learn to man- age the service and in case any unfore- seen complications arose, says Fields. But the resort plans to expand its footprint to include rental outerwear in more of its locations for this coming winter. Pacific Group Resorts, Inc., which offers rental apparel through Gore-Tex at its Vermont resort Jay Peak, also recently expanded the rental outerwear service to its Wisp Resort in Maryland and Winter- green Resort in Virginia, which are clos- er to metropolitan Washington, D.C., and warmer climate areas. Why? The next generation of snow- sports customers is not skiing as many
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