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« Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » Burke Mountain Seeks To Revamp Demographics - Looking For 'Mother Nature'By  The perception of Burke, located in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, is that it's a small, inaccessible place, used primarily as the training ground for youthful racers who attend Burke Mountain Academy, the school that currently owns the ski lifts, Gwatkin said. But he points out that Burke is only a three-hour drive from Boston, is not all that little (its vertical drop is 2,000 feet), and has some of the best glades in New England. Complicating matters is the fact that Burke Mountain Academy is actively entertaining offers on the sale of the ski hill. It has looked for a buyer ever since rescuing the place by buying it in 2000 after the ski operation went bankrupt. Gwatkin, since taking on the marketing title two years ago, has tried to cross-pollinate the skiing with his Vermont Adventure Company, which occupies the base lodge in the warm weather months. "If I had only one demographic to speak to, it's a 42-year-old mother of two, a professional who works part-time who wants to go to a family-friendly resort where she can feel entirely comfortable putting two kids out the door and be confident they'll find their way back safely at the end of the day to where they started," he told The Industry Report. With that in mind, Gwatkin has put a marketing model in place based on the alliance of the ski area with his own summer adventure programs, which target women as the primary clients for its kayaking and wilderness trips. He hopes to lure more skiers and riders in the winter and convert them to year-round visitors. Indeed, these are some of the people who already own condominiums arrayed around the base and sides of Burke Mountain. They are mainly families from Massachusetts. During the winter, Gwatkin said, Burke draws half its skiers from Vermont, and the rest almost entirely from other New England states. In addition, of course, its slopes are home to the students at Burke Mountain Academy, whose graduates include two-time Olympians Erik Schlopy (the reigning U.S. giant slalom champion) and Chip Knight, plus current U.S. Super-G champion Bryna McCarty. Burke was the first of the ski-jock boarding schools. Burke is in "ongoing discussions" with potential buyers of the ski area, according to Headmaster Kirk Dwyer. From the moment the academy bought the ski area in 2000, "we recognized that BMA wouldn't be able to cover the operating losses and capital improvements over the long term," he said. Now, the school hopes to conclude "an arrangement that would guarantee the mountain's future." The Caledonian-Record, a Vermont newspaper, recently published reports pointing to Ginn Clubs and Resorts of Celebration, Fla., as the most likely buyer. The company also is trying to develop a private ski resort in Minturn, Colo., near Vail. As of June 24 the company had not responded to e-mails or phone calls about talks with Burke. Gwatkin founded Vermont Adventure Company on Lake Willoughby in 1999, then moved its operations to Burke in 2003. He made a nonfinancial partnership deal with the academy under which he became the ski area's marketing director while continuing to run his company out of its lodge. The plan was that "when the ski area is in a position to do more things in the summertime, there's this foundation," Gwatkin said. He believes the adventure company and the ski area are a "good strategic fit" because many people who come to ski and ride there don't realize how active the place is during the summer. Gwatkin's company offers river trips as well as "Camp Sacajawea," a weekend kayaking and wilderness program for women. He said 80 percent of inquiries and 65 percent of clients who participate in his program are women who are "financially self-sufficient" and liberated enough to take time off away from their significant others to spend time in the woods. What happens to Gwatkin and his summer programs if and when the academy finalizes a sale? Gwatkin says no one is talking about changing the current arrangement. Whoever buys Ski Burke gets an area of 750 acres, including significant parts on land that can be developed as real estate. According to Dwyer, "real estate is strong in the area," which is what has prompted attention from buyers. (The Ginn Company calls itself "one of the largest privately held real estate development and management firms in the Southeast.") In negotiating with possible buyers, "we're looking for a group with specific ski resort expertise" as well as "financial strength," Dwyer told The Industry Report. He noted that while the academy has "had unprecedented community support," it lost approximately $300,000 this year on ski operations. Burke started just about 50 years ago as a local ski area with nothing more than a Poma surface lift and a rope tow. It was a money-losing proposition in 1970, when Warren Witherell opened the Academy for live-in high school-age students. It combined education in grades 9 through 12 with ski-race training. Since then, the idea of a school for promising young ski racers has been replicated at Stratton Mountain, Sugarbush, and points West. Burke has produced more than three dozen members of the U.S. Olympic ski teams. Witherell, now head of the Crested Butte Academy, has described Burke as "not glitzy. It's not Vail. It's more like skiing used to be 30 years ago." Gwatkin and Dwyer are not looking for glitz. But they would love a new buyer to invest in new lifts, snowmaking, and other improvements to update that image. « Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » |
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