For the week of December 12 - 18, 2001

Recruit or wither

Ski industry exec says skiing 
is in trouble without new riders

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By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

The ski industry is a challenging racket, and it’s not getting any easier.

Skier visits are flat. Snowboarding’s growth is slowing. Baby boomers, who were responsible for skiing’s 1960s and 1970s explosion, are aging. Leisure time is declining. And the industry is small and fragmented.

Add to those trends a weakening economy, September’s terrorist attacks and warm weather on the east coast, and this winter is "not looking good," said Michael Berry, National Ski Areas Association president.

Berry wasted no time Friday morning telling a sold-out crowd at Elkhorn Resort that skiing’s future is dismal unless changes are made and challenges addressed.

Where the ski industry is going to be in the next 15 to 20 years is a fundamental question to resort towns like Ketchum and Sun Valley, he told a crowd who attended the Sun Valley-Ketchum Chamber of Commerce’s annual Economic Outlook Breakfast.

Berry, who worked for Sun Valley Co. in the mid-1970s, presented several models projecting where the ski industry might be in 15 years. Without new skiers and snowboarders, the number of people traveling to the mountains for winter vacations will slip dramatically, he said.

If the industry sits on its hands and doesn’t go after new, young skiers, last year’s record 57.2 million skier visits will shrink to 37.9 million in 15 years.

On the brighter side, if the industry manages to convert more new skiers and snowboarders, visits will grow from 57.2 million last year to 67.2 million in 15 years.

"By increasing our conversion at the trial level, this sport has the ability to hang on," he said.

Small, mom-and-pop ski areas throughout the nation will bear the burden of converting new skiers to the sport, Berry said. Only 15 percent of beginning skiers stay with the sport, a number that he said must increase.

Of skiing’s core of devoted riders, 20 percent lapse out of the sport annually. Of those who lapse, only 25 percent periodically return each year.

For Sun Valley, specifically, he recommended trying to recruit new skiers and snowboarders and reviving some of those who have lapsed out of the sport.

"The fact of the matter is, you live in a little kingdom at the end of the road, and I would suggest you reach out," he said.

A terrain park, too, is a "huge," integral part of attracting new, young skiers and snowboarders to the sport, Berry said.

The liability issues for terrain parks haven’t been settled yet, he said, but well-managed parks appear to be protected.

 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.