Utah's ski industry chalks up another record year for visitors

By Mike Gorrell, The Salt Lake Tribune
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

May 17 --The fortunes of Utah's ski industry get a little better every winter.

Chalk it up to lingering positive publicity from the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Or more immediate returns from a bigger state investment in tourism advertising.

Or yet another good snow year (638 inches overall at Alta).

Or, most likely, all of the above.

Whatever the case, Utah's 13 active ski resorts recorded more than 4 million skier-day visits for the first winter ever -- and the 2005-06 season is still going, with Snowbird Ski & Summer Resort open weekends through at least Memorial Day.

"We're on a roll," said Solitude spokesman Jay Burke. "All eyes are on Utah now and we need to capitalize on it."

The roll has been picking up speed since the Olympics. For three winters in a row, and four of the last five, a season ended with a record for skier days, the industry term for a "person visiting a ski area for all or any part of a day or night for the purpose of skiing."

Since 2002, said Ski Utah President Nathan Rafferty, the number of skier days at Utah resorts is up 29 percent -- including a 4 percent increase this winter over the previous year's record total. That translates into 100,000-plus skier days more than 2004-05.

Unlike the 2004-05 season, when the Pacific Northwest was virtually without snow and California resorts were hurting, resorts across the West received plentiful snow this year. That made Utah's newest record number even more satisfying for Rafferty, telling him "we can stand on our own. It's really nice to have a good ski season when everyone else does, too."

Years like this pay future dividends as well, said Alta spokeswoman Connie Marshall.

"We have found in our regional marketing that when others have a bad season, people tend to get out of the sport. If they don't ski for a year, they don't come back," she said. "But if the snow is good everywhere, you get more consistent skier days and people travel more because they wear out their own hills."

Without providing specific numbers, Marshall said Alta officials consider the recently completed season its "best ever. . . . We had a comfortable number of skier days. A healthy carrying capacity makes visitors come back more than if you really pack the slopes."

The winter of 2005-06 did not start out as promising as its predecessor, when heavy mid-fall storms allowed some Wasatch Front resorts to open in early November. But even without an unusually early start, most Utah resorts opened by Thanksgiving. The storm pattern then brought a new storm through every few days to build bases and replenish powder supplies.

"We had great snow all the way through," said Deer Valley spokeswoman Erin Grady, endorsing Rafferty's observation that none of the frequent storms dropped so much snow that it paralyzed resorts "and took a little of the steam out."

And with skiers still showing a willingness to make last-minute ski vacation plans based on snow reports, the year's consistently mid-sized dumps kept people coming to Utah all season.

"March was a fantastic month," said Snowbird spokeswoman Laura Schaffer, noting her resort had record lodging bookings that month. Storms were not too big to keep these visitors from reaching Snowbird, she said, while giving locals their share of powder days.

Similarly, Solitude's new village attracted 30 percent more visitors than a year ago, while the ski resort sold 7 percent more lift tickets. "It was a huge year," said Burke. "We attribute it to what everyone in Utah is doing as a whole in marketing. And I believe the Olympic halo still carries weight."

Sundance had its "best year," said spokeswoman Lucy Ridolphi, in part because it catered to the Provo and Brigham Young University markets. "We've geared our campaign to locals and are priced competitively for that market," she said.

Like The Canyons and Deer Valley, Park City Mountain Resort realized big returns from Salt Lake City International Airport, which makes it possible for people anywhere in the country to leave their homes in the morning and be skiing at one of Utah's Summit County resorts for free that afternoon.

"There's no other place where you can fly into an international airport and be skiing by noon," she said.

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