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To submit a news item send an email to press@mountainnews.com. The Industry Report is published by Mountain News Corp., which also publishes OnTheSnow.com Editor-In-Chief: - Craig Altschul Executive Editor: - Roger Leo President & Publisher: - Rob Brown Managing Director: - Chad Dyer Advertising Information: - sales@mountainnews.com Subscriptions:
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« Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » The Future Of The Industry: Start With Level 1 Ski SchoolBy Roger Leo 
NSAA President Michael Berry told The Industry Report the way to do that is to refocus ski schools by putting the best instructors with the greatest knack for working with "never-evers" into Level 1 beginner classes. Berry first outlined this strategy at the NSAA Annual Convention in Florida last month, and has been pushing it on a swing across the country in recent days. “One of the first tasks is we need to make sure that the teaching professionals at management level and out on the hill have a true understanding of the challenge ahead. The task before PSIA is to engage people with a knack for teaching at Level 1, the primary level. It’s not just hiring good skiers, but hiring people who can best teach others how to ski and ride. “We have to look for ways to bring people to the activity who have passion for that entry moment. It will determine whether our industry continues to grow or just bumps along. “It’s just a tougher task than anybody ever imagined, to give this emphasis, to find those individuals who, when you give ‘em 10 people, you have not just 1.5 but three people come back the next day. These are the portal keepers. They don’t need to be the best skiers or riders in the world, they need to be the best communicators, able to address people’s fears and anxieties, to communicate the difference between life before and after skiing and riding,” Berry said. “Finding that committed individual is a task, and employing more of them is one of the biggest challenges we have,” he said. The demographics driving his mission are inexorable. The baby boomers, of whom we have heard so much of late, have been a huge part of the ski industry’s customer base, but their numbers have shrunk from 1.3 million participants 10 years ago to 970,000 today. “We’ve been paying attention to this for a long time, and did lay out two tasks. The first was to increase the frequency of existing customers. We did that, and we still need to treat existing customers beautifully. But more important at this time, we need to find those 2 million or so people who will be replacements for those who exit, and I mean permanent replacements,” Berry told the IR. He reiterated the industry needs the second group of 2 million in five more years, and the third group of 2 million in the five years after that. Berry's vision of a refocused and re-energized system of ski schools encompasses many aspects of resort operations, including the entire support system. “We have to make rental a clean, well-lit place, make the process understandable, have information available. Couple all those together and we have a chance at it,” Berry said. “We have to put more people in line, but recognize they have to be people predisposed to being outside in the winter time. We underestimate how daunting the whole experience can be for someone who’s never been before. Friends drop people off at our entry portal, and we just assume they have a passion for our sport. Some are passionate, but not all,” he said. Berry sees aging of the boomers as far more worrisome than vagaries of the economy. “We’ll come back from the swoon in the economy, but it’s going to take some incredibly vigorous effort on the part of the industry to bring in another whole replacement generation,” he said. “My job is to remind them of the task, and provide them with data and an understanding of the challenge ahead in the next five to 10 years,” he said. “I really am the never-ending 'note to self' for the ski industry,” Berry said. What It Means The best and the brightest ski instructors may well serve snow sports best by welcoming newcomers, rather than improving the skills of those already committed to winter sliding. Berry's plan may not be brand new, and it certainly isn't the only way to reach his required numbers, but he does offer the mountain resort industry a chance to save itself by refocusing intensely on building passion for the sport from the get-go. « Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » Comments
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Posted by: Doug Pfeiffer Doug Pfeiffer | June 15, 2009 10:22 AM
