Utah ski season started slow, finishing strong

Utah ski season started slow, finishing strong
Recreation » Snow was in short supply early on; out-of-state skier totals are holding up well vs. last's years numbers.
By Paul Beebe
The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated: 03/05/2010 08:53:31 PM MST

On a morning when the Wasatch Mountains were carpeted with fresh snow, Coleen Reardon was feeling good about the remaining weeks of the ski season.
Last year, the last three weeks of March were a near-bust for Deer Valley Resort, thanks to the recession, said Reardon, marketing director for the tony resort.
Today, the outlook has turned around. Bookings for the next three weeks of March -- and the first week of April - --- are solid, suggesting to Reardon that consumer angst is thawing, and skiers are once again opening their wallets.
"We've never seen this level of bookings so close in [to the time they arrive at Deer Valley] and so late in the year," Reardon said. "I think people really did miss their vacations last year."
While she didn't provide mid-season visitor numbers, it was clear from her report that Utah's ski industry is turning a corner.
Largely because of the economy and an early shortage of snow, the season began inauspiciously, said Nathan Rafferty, president of Ski Utah, a marketing firm owned by the 13 ski resorts that make up the Utah Ski and Snowboard Association. Lately, though, skier counts have been charging uphill.
"If there's going to be a theme this year, it was a slow start and a strong finish," Rafferty said.
It's too early to tell just how profitable the 2009-10 season will turn out to be. With plenty of skiable snow at the state's resorts, those numbers are at least six weeks away.

Out-of-state skier counts are holding up well against last year's lift-ticket numbers, Rafferty said.
Local skier counts are soft, though, mainly because of the perception that since snowfall totals haven't approached those of the two previous years, skiing conditions aren't optimal, he said.
Even so, "given where the economy is and how the weather worked out, I think the resorts are going to be happy with their numbers," Rafferty said.
Resorts have noticed a significant change in skier spending patterns, however. Before the recession struck late in 2007, families traveling to Utah ski areas splurged, renting more than one hotel room, buying new equipment, eating at restaurants and taking private lessons, Rafferty said.
This year, as the country crawls out of the recession, "they are squeezing everybody into one room, stopping at Costco to pick up snacks, making breakfast in their rooms and taking group lessons," he said.
Meanwhile, along the Wasatch Front at Alta, it's been a "solid year," spokesman Tyler Jackson said. No attendance records are being set, though.
"Season pass holders have done well. The snow hasn't been like we've had in the last few years. But the storms that we've had [since Thursday] has brought everyone up," Jackson said.
At mid-day, Alta had received 19 inches of snow over the previous 24 hours.
pbeebe@sltrib.com