Canyons, UT announced a huge list of changes recently to their mountain, uphill capacity, and, most intriguing, the comfort of their skiers’ derrieres.

Hannah Bowling, Canyons’ Communication Coordinator, took some time out of her busy schedule to answer a few of my questions about they whys and how of the resort’s latest upgrade, including some of their social media ideas.

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SlopeFillers: Talk a little bit about your decision and marketing goals to make so many big changes at once.
Hannah: The Canyons has been working the last couple of years to truly become one of the top destinations for guests not only locally but world wide, the announcement of all of the changes signal the resort’s desire to become one of the best 4-season resorts in the world.

SlopeFillers: (regarding the new bubble/heated seat lift) How much of the decision to install this lift was based on a desire to be early adopters/innovators/industry leaders and how much was based on actual skier feedback?
Hannah: The decision comes from both sides, innovation is key in any industry, and taking the step to become the first with this Dopplemayr chair, signifies our approach to become the talk of the industry for years to come.

SlopeFillers: The changes are big and from following some Twitter discussion the feedback has been mixed, especially from locals. From your perspective, how are locals and out-of-staters alike responding to the announcements?
Hannah: Both locals and non-locals are giving us positive feedback for the most part, it seems like the more people learn about the reasoning behind all of the improvements, the more accepting they are of the changes we are making.

SlopeFillers: What kind of things has The Canyons done to build buzz and attention with such a big announcement to work with?
Hannah: It was important for us to announce everything when we knew that we would be able to have all of the projects done by opening day, we started with a press conference, and made announcements via our social media outlets coinciding with the press conference, then sent the press release to both local, regional, and industry contacts. We have
received great feedback and are excited for opening day!

SlopeFillers: I’ve noticed that your Twitter follower count has exploded over the last month or so, but the number you are following how grown even more. What have some of your new goals / tactics been with Twitter
during the last couple months and have those been related to the big announcements?
Hannah: We have decided to follow more people because it gives us more of an idea of what the voices around us are saying, it is very important for us to listen to our guests and to the public.

Many thanks again to Hannah. Check out details on all the improvements here.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.