“Shoot til you make it. Shoot til you miss.”

That was the free throw mantra of my youth. At the end of any sort of shoot around session, pick up game, or driveway H-O-R-S-E battle, I’d do one thing before putting the ball away: shoot free throws til I made one, they keep shooting until I missed.

Streaky Streaks
There’s something about streaks. If you go skiing three days in a row, there’s this weird desire to make it four, even if that falls on a day you may not be interested in skiing otherwise.

Last Saturday at Beaver Creek, I tried to start of a streak of not skiing the same lift twice in a row. A streak that eventually led me to take a ride each of their 15 open chairs that day. It seemed the longer my streak grew, the more dedicated I became to pushing forward.

When I started pulling data around this idea last week, I expected to find something interesting, but I didn’t expect this:

This idea of keeping a vacation streak alive seems to hold this same idea. The more years you come in a row, the more likely you are to extend the streak one more year.

The Opportunity
I think there’s an opportunity here in a few ways. Never before have I seen marketing copy about getting guests to start, and continue, a vacation tradition at their resort. Nor have I ever seen any incentives to do so.

Would a “5-year” club work (only about 1% of guests who start a streak this year will make it)? Maybe. Is there special pricing, experiences, or privileges you could entice them back with? Perhaps.

Yet each of these years, from 1 to 6, shouts opportunity. To bring more of each tier back, marketing to each specifically, getting more and more of your guests to not just make your resort a choice, nor a habit, but a tradition.

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.