In the last 15 years, resort websites have gone from hackish bits of design and code to something you could stick in an art gallery.

But I can’t help but think that this is the trajectory we find ourselves on with design.

Any improvements from here on out will likely be small, incremental and more driven by changes in design trends than actual needs from resorts.

The Challenge
In my mind, this is a massive opportunity for resorts.

The thing is, though, that I love the redesign process but It gets marketing teams to come together and rethink everything they are doing on the web, decide what’s working, what’s not, what could be better, easier, more effective.

But the big downside is that because you’re starting all over with the design, much of the lessons from those data you’re looking at may not apply in the context of a brand new system.

The Analogy
Think about it this way. Let’s say you’re dating a girl named Emily and after a year of ups and downs and joy and pain, she dumps you.

Now, looking back over that year you’ve learned a ton about dating/girls in general, but specifically that girl: Emily. So, when you meet your next flame on the chairlift this year only some of it will apply to her because, well, she’s not Emily.

But what if you could start all over with Emily, perfectly wipe the slate, but still know what you know now? How much more valuable would that knowledge be in that situation?

The Opportunity
That’s the opportunity I see in the leveling of the design-quality curve. With less need to redesign, I wonder what would happen if resorts skipped every other design process and replaced it with an optimization process.

Take all the data you usually do, bring all the marketing masterminds on your team together like you did before, summon the wizards at the agency who you worked with last time, but instead of starting all over with a brand new site, you simply apply all that energy and time and creativity and data to make your current site even better.

Optimization is powerful. Hugely powerful. And when the clay you are molding is the same bit you learned from in the first place, some amazing things can happen.

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.