The snow has vanished from all but stray patches of mountain, and the highlights of ski season have faded now into memories — and they’re ones resorts throughout the state will look back on fondly for some time.
Ski Utah announced Thursday that more skiers and snowboarders than ever sped down the slopes of Utah’s 14 ski areas. The industry closed the season with nearly 4.5 million skier days, besting the previous record, set in 2007-2008, by almost five percent.
It was a roughly 13-percent increase over last year’s number of skier days, and a 10.4 percent rise over the five-year average. Ski Utah does not release data breaking down the totals at individual resorts.
“I would say that our industry is very healthy,” said Nathan Rafferty, president and CEO of Ski Utah.
That a record-setting amount of skiers rushed to the resorts in a year that saw good but not outstanding snowfall was particularly encouraging. Rafferty said that, historically, “it’s some epic winter” that sets a new mark for skier visits.
This season’s success, though, was owing to two other factors, he said: The Utah Office of Tourism spent $21 million to promote the state as a prime skiing destination, and resorts pumped millions of dollars into capital improvements.
“I think that’s really encouraging,” he said. “This was the first time we knocked off one of those really great seasons and didn’t go, ‘Thanks, Mother Nature.’ It was, ‘Thanks, resorts, for the infrastructure improvements and thanks, Utah Office of Tourism.’ It was a collaborative, group effort.”
No capital project drummed up more attention than the gondola linking Park City Mountain Resort’s two base areas. The $50 million the resort spent on the gondola, lift improvements and a new restaurant created “huge buzz” that had a ripple effect for the state’s other resorts, Rafferty said.
Emily Summers, communications manager for Deer Valley Resort, declined to release the resort’s final skier visit numbers but said it was one of Deer Valley’s best years, though not quite a record-setter. She agreed with the assertion that the hubbub surrounding PCMR’s gondola helped resorts throughout the state, including Deer Valley.
“One of the best things about Utah is how close everyone is,” she said. “I mean, we really share a rope line with Park City (Mountain Resort). We have a lodging business, so there was overflow there; we have restaurants, so there was overflow there. I think we all saw the bustling Main Street. It’s good for all of our businesses and it’s good for our community. Park City was what it should be in the ski season.”
Margo Van Ness, a spokeswoman for PCMR, declined to comment.
The task now is building on the momentum. Rafferty said Ski Utah has been focusing on next season since January, and he’s hopeful that the new marketing efforts will prove as successful as last season’s. He’s also counting on skiers recalling the great times they had on the slopes.
“Skiers are like anybody else in that you kind of forget traffic issues or whatever, and you remember those big powder days,” he said. ” When we have a great winter, it definitely carries over, especially in season passes and the purchases people make before the snow even flies, and that’s really important.”
From a resort perspective, beefing up what Summers referred to as an “insurance policy” is a critical way to ensure skiers continue to flock here. Resorts across the state, including Deer Valley, will be improving their snow-making operations to insulate against the biggest threat to carrying over this season’s momentum — poor snowfall.
“We are always investing in snow-making,” Summers said. “We’re replacing pipe on four different ski runs, which is a big deal.”
Added Rafferty: “That’s very important. It’s not glamorous — it’s not a headline that you’re going to put in your brochures: ‘We installed X amount of miles of snow-making pipe.’ But if you’re going to be competitive in a ski region, you’ve got to have that assurance that that’s going to be there.”