Last year, I made five “fearless resort marketing predictions” for 2013.

If you hadn’t noticed, 2013 ends tomorrow night. So, how’d I do? Hmm, I wish you hadn’t asked.

Prediction #1: Resorts Will talk Less, Get Fans to Share More
Like a keynote speaker at a big conference, this sound bite was vague enough that I could pick and choose a few examples to support my prediction if things didn’t pan out. However, on a large scale, the volume of fans-generated content really didn’t change much.
Result: WRONG

Prediction #2: Liftopia Will Get the Last Few Hold Outs
Hard to say how many of the holdouts signed up. I did see a few, but not quite as many as I was expecting. CloudStores, on the other hand, really took off…should have predicted something about those in hindsight.
Result: WRONG

Prediction #3: EpicMix Will Get Company
Man, am I really going to go 0-3? Yes, yes I am. I really thought Axess would beef up their skier stats platform or someone would make a big move in this arena. This was not the case but I still think there’s a big opportunity here.
Result: WRONG

Prediction #4: Midwest + Colorado Partnerships Will Spring Up
Aha! Finally, I get to claim a prediction as true. A handful of small partnerships did pop up. Among the ones I saw was a little number between Big Sky and Welch Village.
Result: RIGHT

Prediction #5: Social CRM Will Come Front & Center
I kind of cheated on this one because I had a hand in this game, but social CRM did indeed start catching on with resorts. The one thing that surprised me, however, was the lack of analysis done with this data. That, to me, is the biggest piece with campaigns a lesser focus.
Result: RIGHT

Total: 2/5 (40%)
Well, 40% ain’t bad but it ain’t good.

You’d think I’d have learned my lesson about prognostication, but I’ll be back at it for the rest of the week with my predictions for 2014.

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.