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« Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » Snow King Is "Town Hill" Success StoryBy  Snow King, which opened in 1939, is the ski, snowboard and tubing hill that looms above the ever-growing valley known to all as Jackson Hole. It's steep enough that one writer called it a "tough little bastard." But it can hardly compete in acreage, chutes or fame with the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, 12 miles across the Snake River, where Teton Village is also growing and now claims a Four Seasons hotel, among others, at its heart. Nevertheless, Snow King manages to thrive. Although its season pass begins at $99 (compared to Jackson Hole's $1595) and its walkup daily lift ticket costs only $35 (JHMR is $70), the skiing is not what makes money for Snow King, according to its managers. Instead, it has carved out a productive niche for itself as a place for conventions and meetings, as a training ground for overseas World Cup racing teams and as a real estate venture with a growing portfolio of condominiums and town homes from the modest to the deluxe. "Our philosophy is that we're an inclusive community resort instead of an exclusive resort community," Dana Ahrensberg, the general manager of Snow King Resort, told Industry Report. Almost all the local service clubs, including Kiwanis, Lions, Soroptimists, chamber of commerce and realtor groups hold their meetings at Snow King, along with numerous nonprofits from the region. The resort's hotel, which opened for business in 1976, does a successful job in wooing out-of-town visitors to stay in its hotel and to do business there. Depending on the package they buy, hotel guests can ski or ride Snow King free. "We're one of the largest convention facilities in the valley," Ahrensberg, a 17-year veteran of Snow King, continued. "Conventions are 65 percent of our business." And Snow King is "in the enviable position of owning it all" -- the meeting space, hotel rooms and the food and beverage service, along with the hill. To talk up group bookings as well as conventions and meetings, Snow King executives attend various trade shows, including Affordable Meetings, Mountain Travel Symposium and the like. To lasso its share of the leisure travel market, the resort created a "Ski-All-3" package, which offers hotel and condo guests a discounted rate to ski not just Snow King but Jackson Hole plus Grand Targhee on the Idaho side of Teton Pass. "We're under no illusions. People come here to ski the big one -- Jackson Hole. We hope to capture them for an afternoon," Ahrensberg said. He means an afternoon on the Snow King's north-facing slopes. That's where, in recent times, the Finns, Norwegians, French and others have practiced during the fall in preparation for each season's first North American races. If you are going to be a town hill, it pays to have serious steeps -- even though Bode Miller reputedly shrugged after a giant slalom race there in 1998, calling the course "kind of short." Locals and guests can learn at Snow King's ski school, operated by Bill Briggs, the first man to ski the Grand Teton. Acknowledging that the slopes are not a profit center, Jim Sullivan, the ski area manager, said management supports the hill "because it adds critical mass to the whole resort. We bring in good room revenues." Not every "town hill" in ski country is fortunate enough to be located at the gateway to a summer leisure travel market far larger than its winter traffic. During both summer and winter, destination visitors include overseas groups such as those brought by the large British tour operator Ingham, as well as budget-minded Americans who drive or who fly in via the Jackson Hole airport. Though located inside Grand Teton National Park, the airport can handle Boeing 757s as well as smaller aircraft. Sullivan and Ahrensberg pointed out that Jackson's base altitude of 6200 square feet is low enough to permit an early spring tourist migration than some of the higher-altitude resorts in Colorado. The National Park Service plows part of its road north to Jenny Lake in March, but that road is not open to cars until May 1. "Cyclists and others take advantage of it," said Ahrensberg. "And you can get out in the backcountry as things melt out." As spring warms into summer, Jackson Hole welcomes 3-million tourists headed for its world-renowned attractions like Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks and the National Elk Refuge. There is an alpine slide on Snow King during the summer as well. In the fall, wildlife viewing is the major draw. Ahrensberg says local tourism advocates call the valley "the Serengeti of the West." To further diversify its business, Snow King in 1993 added a freestanding indoor hockey rink at its base. Regional teams play there, and the ice can be covered over to create a 25,000 square feet of meeting space. Since the early 1990s, real estate has been a major focus of Snow King's expansion. With the construction of the Pitchfork, Clarks Knoll, Grand Vista and Love Ridge condos, Snow King now has about 90 units, many with 2 "doors" (creating a main unit plus a lock-off) under management as rentals at various price points. The Love Ridge units, which are the most expensive, have encroached on what was some of the beginner terrain on the mountain, so management is recontouring some of its slopes. "Were trying to more efficiently use our beginner area," Ahrensberg said. The one area of the ski hill that will never be a condo site is located not far from the bottom; it’s a town cemetery, just one part of what makes Snow King perhaps the ultimate "town hill." « Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » |
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