Ski Areas Fill Up Early For the Holidays

Ski Areas Fill Up Early
For the Holidays

Bookings Jump After Resorts
Offer Big Advance Discounts;
Adding Rooms at Big Sky
By AVERY JOHNSON
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 11, 2005; Page D1

While most ski areas now have barely a dusting of snow, some resorts are already booking up for the winter holidays.

Enticed by special discounts and because of the quirks of this year's holiday calendar, travelers are filling up resorts much earlier than in prior seasons. Winter reservations at Jackson Hole, Wyo., are up 41% this year compared with this time last year, according to Jackson Hole Central Reservations. Much of Utah, which continues to benefit from the buzz generated by the 2002 Winter Olympics and last year's epic snow fall, is quickly selling out; Reservations at Deer Valley Lodging, which manages property at the Deer Valley Resort, are up 14% from this time last year for the winter overall, and up 30% for the month of December. The Lake Tahoe, Calif., area is predicting a 18% increase in the number of nights booked in local hotels this winter over last, according to the Lake Tahoe Visitor's Authority.


Early snow at Aspen


Much of the bottleneck is due to the resorts' own making. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, advance bookings plummeted, and resorts found they had little way to predict whether skiers would show up for a weekend or not. Over the last couple of years, in an attempt to entice vacationers to commit early, some started to aggressively discount advance packages. This season, the specials, most of which expire at the end of this month, have spread to many more resorts. Because of concerns that gasoline prices may spook last-minute travelers, many resorts have thrown extra energy behind these incentives to lock in vacationers early.

This year's availability crunch is also exacerbated by the fact that both Christmas and New Year's fall on weekend days. This squeezes the options for vacation time. Also, this year, Jackson Hole, Breckenridge, Colo., and Alta, Utah, among others, have already received early-season snow. While most mountains don't open until at least November, the news is likely to excite skiers and speed bookings further.

The Mountain Travel Research Project, or MTRiP, which tracks the ski industry, found bookings at major Western ski resorts up 6.6% from where they were on Sept. 30 of last year.

According to the National Ski Areas Association, which has tracked ticket sales since 1978, four out of the last five winter seasons have been record setters for the ski industry in terms of numbers of tickets sold. The 2003-2003 season set a record of 57.6 million tickets. Last year the number dipped to 56.9 million, largely because of poor weather in the Pacific Northwest.

NO ROOM AT THE CHALET


Ski resorts across the country are filling up for key dates more quickly than usual. See a graphic of what resorts around the country are seeing.Ira Kitograd, a 41-year-old residential contractor in Orlando, Fla., who has taken his family on a ski vacation between Christmas and New Year's for the past six years, called the St. Regis Resort, Aspen in August only to find them completely sold out for the holiday week. That is a big contrast with last Christmas, when he stayed there using hotel reward points without much hassle. "It's much more difficult to find availability than when I started doing this," he says. Regarding Mr. Kitograd's experience, Rob Henderson, the property's director of sales and marketing, says the resort has been booking up more briskly this year, due to the popularity of luxury travel and a recent $40 million renovation.

The ski industry's fortunes reflect a larger uptick in travel overall. U.S. room rates on average this year are expected to hit a record high of $90.49, exceeding their previous peak in 2000 of $85.28. Occupancy, a measure of how full hotels are, this year is approaching the 2000 high of 63.3%, with a forecast this year of 63% (up from 61.3% in 2004).

According to a winter forecast to be released today by PricewaterhouseCoopers' Hospitality Practice, the early-winter holiday season between Thanksgiving and New Year's is expected to set a record in terms of number of room nights sold daily, at 2.28 million. That's a 3.2% increase over last year's strong sales of 2.21 million. Resorts are expected to increase 3.9%, says Bjorn Hanson, head of the lodging group. The nine-night Christmas period is predicted to outsell last year's holiday week by 50,000 rooms.

There are still, however, early-season deals available. The Whistler Blackcomb resort in Canada is offering a package that includes five nights, four lift tickets and one day of adult lessons for $326 per person. The package must be booked by the end of this month. Stowe Mountain Resort in Stowe, Vt., offers season passes for $1,245 until Oct. 27; after that the price jumps to $1,507. Through Oct. 12, the American Skiing Co.'s all-for-one pass, which gives access to six resorts on the East Coast including Killington, Mount Snow and Sugarloaf on the East Coast, is $369. (It is available online at www.peaks.com1. Some blackout dates apply.)

Other discounts run all season except holidays, creating openings for travelers who are more flexible. Deer Valley Lodging, which is over 95% full at Christmas and 85% full during February's Presidents Day holiday period, has a discount package that runs for 10 weeks (with holidays blacked out) and includes three nights of lodging and lift tickets. Sunday River in Maine has a promotion that gives a night's lodging, a lift ticket and lesson for $49.95 through Dec. 17. The price increases to $69.95 after that and some days are blacked out.

Even though the discounts are deep, the proliferation of early-bird specials will ultimately mean higher prices for the vast majority of skiers this winter, and much less availability for late-game bookers. Resorts have noticed that an early spike in numbers allows them to raise their rates earlier with confidence as the holidays approach. Big Sky Resort in Montana, for instance, abandoned its old policy of setting prices at the beginning of the season this past May, and replaced it with one that calculates room rates based on demand.

As a result, "rack rates," or the full prices that hotels can charge, are up to 10% over last year at ski resorts, according to Ski.com, a mountain-vacation travel agent. The Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch in Colorado, for example, is $750 a night this year, up from $675 a night last year for the Christmas period.

Some ski resorts say that even though they're mostly booked up, potential holiday makers should try calling 45 days before their intended arrival date. That's because major resorts like the St. Regis Resort, Aspen require full payment of a holiday-period reservation that far in advance, and some early bookers back out around then, creating availability.

It also makes sense to look at a resort's expansion plans; if last year saw a lot of growth in the hotel market, beds are likely to be more available this year. At Big Sky, for instance, there are 25% more condominium units this year than last, which is causing the majority of the resort to remain around 70% full for the Christmas and New Year's period.

Waiting could also reap rewards if ski areas get jumpy about gas prices. Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association, anticipates that if fuel prices remain high, resorts will likely offer incentives, such as refunds for tanks of gas. At Mount Bachelor in Oregon, where reservations for the winter are 12.5% ahead of where they were last year at this time, the marketing department has such a promotion in the wings should gas climb over $3 a gallon.

Skiers can also try old-fashioned calling around: Even some of the biggest name resort towns still have hit-or-miss availability. Bookings at Vail Cascade Resort & Spa, for instance, are 20% lower for December compared with this time last year; Christmas is 30% full. The resort tends not to book up until November.

Whistler in Canada's British Columbia, which had a notoriously rainy winter last year, shows bookings through the middle of January running 7% below where they were at this time last year.

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Skiing Uphill
By CONOR DOUGHERTY Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNALOctober 14, 2005; Page W3
After years of gradual increases, this year lift-ticket prices at ski resorts across the country are taking the big jump.
A one-day adult lift ticket will cost $78 at Colorado's Aspen/Snowmass, up $4 from last year (the previous increase was $2). At California's Mammoth Mountain Resort, this year's rise in weekend lift prices was $6, to $70, compared with a $2 increase the year before. In the East, Vermont's Killington Resort is charging $69 this season after two years of holding steady at $67.
Many ski resorts attribute the increase to higher costs, primarily energy. Mammoth Mountain says the cost of diesel -- used to run its snowcats -- recently was running at 55% more this year than last, while the daily cost of running chairlifts is expected to rise to $10,000 from around $8,700 last year. "We consume a fair amount of energy," says Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association.
The price rises come as the U.S. ski industry has logged some of its best seasons on record, thanks to a decent snowfall and an increase in international customers enticed by the weakened dollar. About 57 million people visited U.S. ski resorts last season, the fourth-best year ever, the Ski Areas Association says. Resorts have spent tens of millions adding everything from faster chairlifts to luxury hotels and shopping malls.
The ski season starts today, as Colorado's Loveland Ski Area opens.