I look around and I see much of the same. The same mountains, the same marketing, the same offers. It seems the industry has found a few things that work and most of the resorts out there have seen the success of others and are following suit. Seth Godin, in Purple Cow, makes the claim that being a cookie cutter business is no longer safe. That simply doing what others do because it worked for them doesn’t provide the guarantee of success it once did. In order to thrive, you need to be remarkable. A remarkable product, remarkable marketing, a remarkable way to get things done. He suggest finding the edges, the fringe of your industry and go there.

What’s remarkable right now, you ask? Here’s how I see it:

Alta
Forget discount passes and 2-for-1s. At Alta, you can ski part of their mountain for free every day after 3pm. That’s remarkable.

Bear Mountain
Other resorts dedicate a run or two for their terrain parks, Big Bear has turned nearly the entire resort into one. That’s remarkable.

Copper Mountain
A pass that you can only use when it snows and PPC ads that make you smile instead of gag? Pretty remarkable.

Deer Valley
In a state addicted to powder turns, have you ever seen the way they groom their mountain? Remarkable.

Saddleback
Why buy a season pass when you can buy a decade pass? It may not be permanent, but it is remarkable.

That’s five. What I want to know is 1) who do you see as “remarkable” in the ski resort world and, 2) (rhetorically) who is gonna be next?

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.