Ski shows. I went to my last show nearly twenty years ago before the last major event disappeared in the Wasatch. Today, marketers are on the fence. Some say it’s a waste of time, others wouldn’t miss them for the world.

So I asked 12 marketers if their resort still invests in ski shows and why/why not. Today I’ll share the reasons given for either not attending or being on the fence about doing so.

After some anonymizing to protect specific approaches, here’s what they said.

—

EAST

EASTERN RESORT
“There are other shows that are more ski and snowboard sales that do not make sense to go to. The show at Giant’s Stadium has morphed into a sale and resorts being there is an afterthought now. In the day we used to sell lots of product at the event. But not anymore. The current lineup we go to is shrinking. As promoters rely more on sales as the anchor to the event, resorts are being asked to take a back seat role which pushes guests away from us and into the sales. Entertainment value that anchored shows in the past has been lost in favor of sales of gear. This is not true in all cases but is now more the norm.”

WEST

WESTERN RESORT
“I’m not sold on them either. I’ve had lots of conversations with other resort friends, equipment reps, retailers, etc about throwing the whole idea up in the air and trying to come up with something new. Unfortunately, that’s kind of a tough prospect. Consumer somewhat expect them…at least for the cheap deals and free lift tickets (which we don’t give). And the promoters are so locked into the revenue source, they won’t stop hounding us.”

WESTERN RESORT
“Ever since I’ve been [here] we haven’t gone to the large ski shows. I’m not sure the exact reason as it’s more of a sales function, but I could guess. I believe they’re expensive and resource heavy and have been showing diminishing returns over the years, especially in the mid-west markets. The Chicago show, which is the only one that makes sense for us your 10’x10’ booth fee is close to $2k after all of the extras, not including all of your booth materials, travel and labor. Unfortunately, I think ski shows have run their course, unless there is a compelling offer to drive guests to them, which is counter-intuitive as most of us are trying to offer the lowest price on our own websites, visit numbers will continue to diminish. Also, with social media, our ever growing databases and online booking engines, there are much easier and more cost effective ways to reach large numbers of guests.”

WESTERN RESORT
“[States which ones they attend]. Boston on the other hand, has over 70 ski areas to choose from just in New England (driveable)! Far less motivation to get on a plane.”

WESTERN RESORT
“If we had to pay full price for the booth space, I would seriously consider skipping some of them. The trend that I see is the ski shows are becoming more about the retail side of things – folks looking for super cheap gear vs. planning their winter ski trips or looking for season pass deals. So most of the folks we see cruising by our booth are not all that interested in what we’re trying to sell them (at least not right then at the show). And a lot just want any random sticker they can find.”

WESTERN RESORT
“We don’t attend ski shows. Haven’t as long as I have been in this position. I feel the reason for it is because one we don’t have lodging package or promo to push and two the expense is pretty big for us. My sense is its a lot of skiers looking for free stuff and not really trying to plan trips. I would think the only benefit would be trying to gain emails through some kind sign up to win contest so we could add them to our email marketing.

[Our regional association] attends most of the large shows with a couple of the [nearby] resorts. We kind of let them handle it for us.”

WESTERN RESORT
“While others have either gone away or turned primarily in the retail/pass sale events like the [local] show. In general, would have to say the ski show model is pretty tired and there’s so many other ways to reach consumers these days.”

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.