No gloom and doom here
With the closing of Baldy within a few days, the natural
question is how well did the Sun Valley/Ketchum area do economically in a
year when gloom and doom is in the news on so many fronts.
We did fine, thank you.
The unusually light snowfall for the ski season could’ve
been the makings of an economic disaster had it not been for the Sun
Valley Co.’s $22 million investment in one of the world’s largest
snowmaking systems.
So, although some 400,000 ski days for the 2000-2001
season fell short of the record of 476,000 set in 1981-82, we escaped the
calamity of 1976-77 when only 80,000 ski days were recorded because of a
miserable snowfall.
Other indicators bolster the good news.
The Sun Valley Co. reports about a 2 percent increase in
hotel occupancy over last year.
And the city of Ketchum’s sales tax receipts ¾ totaling
$968,739 year-to-date for the fiscal year – show an overall 2.32 percent
increase over last year, with only the building materials sector showing a
decrease of less than 1 percent.
What’s ahead?
The major air carrier for the Wood River Valley, SkyWest
Airlines, has announced the addition of four round-trip flights daily
between its Salt Lake City hub and Friedman Memorial Airport in Hailey.
With 11 daily flights a day, SkyWest therefore is betting
that business for the summer will be heavy and thus will require the new
schedule.
Can’t get much better than that.
