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It’s hardly a secret that one of skiing’s biggest challenges is how to attract newcomers and then turn them into enthusiasts. Various ski schools have been tackling the issue in several different ways, from repackaged lesson offerings to expanded learning terrain to advances in beginner technique and equipment. It’s clear, however, that the industry has a long way to go to bring skiing and snowboarding within reach of never-evers. The NSAA Growth Initiative goal of increasing retention rates from 15 percent to 25 percent remains elusive: the rate has increased just one percent in six years.

Which is not to say that some areas aren’t trying. Here’s what they are up to:


Weeding out the Wedge
When the concept of teaching direct-to-parallel lessons was mentioned in ski instruction circles at least half a dozen years ago, it was viewed by many as an almost heretical idea. How would first-time skiers have any means of control or stopping if they didn’t start out in the time-honored wedge? Since then, many ski schools have quietly eschewed the wedge as a position that must be taught, focusing instead on turning—aided by the revolution in ski shape—as the primary skill for beginners to learn. Some schools actively use, and promote, a direct-to-parallel method.

The ski school at SolVista Basin at Granby Ranch, in Colorado, was one of the first to teach newcomers to ski parallel from the first moment on snow. The Accelerated Learning Center bases its lessons on the Primary Movements Teaching System, developed by veteran instructor Harald Harb, and the center delivers on the promise in its name. “It’s very easy for our guests to learn how to ski,” says ski school manager John Raney. “After the first day they’re skiing greens without any problem, and they don’t have to unlearn the wedge. It’s a terrific system, a very fast way to learn how to ski.” A package with two all-day lessons, lifts, and rentals cost $99 last season.

The SolVista instructors, however, are not dogmatic in their approach, another key to the program’s success. “We teach a particular method, but it’s not the only way to ski, and not necessarily the best method for everyone. We don’t just go out and teach a lesson. Every lesson is tailored for the people in the class so they have a rewarding and safe experience.”

The ski school also offers a guarantee: if a guest isn’t fully satisfied with his or her progress in that first lesson, the second lesson is free. Not a lot of people request the freebie, according to Raney, but “sometimes even altitude sickness or being out of shape results in this.”

The results of the program are measurable. SolVista captures feedback via guest comment cards, and, by this measure, the resort claims on its website that guest satisfaction has nearly tripled since the Accelerated Learning Center was established in the mid-1990s.

Aspen offers its Beginner’s Magic ski and snowboard program, which also emphasizes direct-to-parallel teaching, at Snowmass and Buttermilk. The program incorporates special equipment, including very short skis to start, four-buckle boots, and, if necessary, a fast and easy alignment correction with inside-the-boot shims. Guests can buy either a one- or three-day Beginner’s Magic package ($129/$327 last season for full-day lesson/lifts/rental). “We encourage the three days so students can get up on the hill, and they get to see what skiing is all about and participate in a mountain environment, without being stuck at the bottom,” says ski school managing director Katie Fry.

Aspen doesn’t track conversion numbers for the program, but presumably, experiencing more of the mountain will help turn newbies into repeat skiers. Fry also believes that the resort’s strong guest service ethic has an effect, too. “It’s all about the connection with the guest,” she says. “How do we instill a sense of belonging? When a guest is walking through a resort, how do we help a guest feel like they’re a ‘member’”?


The Perfect Partnership
Burton Snowboards launched its Learn to Ride program (originally known as the Burton Method Center) in 1998. The company teamed up with snowboarding schools to offer beginner-specific rental equipment and lessons with a low student/instructor ratio (four to one is considered the ideal). Today, 59 ski areas are part of Learn to Ride; in addition, 13 resorts have freestyle-specific LTR lessons, nine resorts will offer a women’s LTR program next winter, and at least three areas will have Burton progression terrain parks.

Helping new riders assimilate into a resort’s snowboard culture is another program goal. “We want customers to feel like they’re not on rental gear, so we put on catchy, edgy graphics, nothing that calls out ‘Hey, I’m on rental gear,’” says Hillary Sherman, Burton’s resorts program coordinator for LTR. “It looks the part. We want to give them that extra confidence.”

Ideally, first-timers get drawn in from the moment they walk into the rental shop. At Stowe Mountain Resort, where the Burton program was initially developed, the LTR center has its own rental building. “You get the snowboarding vibe right away, with cool music and snowboarding videos, and all the staffers are boarders,” says Jeff Wise, communications director for the mountain and former snowboard school director.

Stowe’s snowboarding school was already seeing steady growth before it adopted the LTR program, but Wise notes that the additional marketing and brand recognition Burton provided were huge positives. And, of course, the specialized gear works as advertised. “Without question, individuals who came out with the right gear, on LTR stuff, had far fewer challenges and progressed much quicker than some of what you saw going on before we had the standardized equipment,” says Wise.

Building on the flagship program’s success, Burton has developed niche LTR offerings: a kid’s program that’s now at 31 resorts; a women’s program, introduced in 2004, for which turnout to date has tripled; and a freestyle program, which debuted two seasons ago and emphasizes learning tricks on small features, in a safe progression, on freestyle-specific rental boards.

Last season Burton took the freestyle concept one step further and helped develop progression parks—terrain parks with learner-friendly features and layouts—at Northstar and Loon. “We saw it as an opportunity to capture people who were too nervous to try freestyle,” Sherman says. The parks incorporate small fenced-off areas above each feature that allow riders or lesson groups to stop and consider their approach, or simply work up their nerve. Ample signage, including Smart Style safety tips and photos of top Burton riders, extends throughout the park.

“We were seeing for a long time that people might take one or two snowboard lessons and then go off on their own, if they even took a lesson," says Mike Bettera, branded entertainment manager for Booth Creek Resorts, which owns Northstar and Loon. The opportunity to partner with Burton to create an introductory park and, hopefully, drive lesson traffic, worked to perfection for both resorts. “There were a large number of beginners in the area [including a lot of skiers], and we got a huge amount of positive feedback,” says Bettera. Moreover, each resort experienced an increase in LTR freestyle lessons. The parks were so successful that no major changes are slated for this winter, other than a handful of additional features and new signage to keep things fresh. Booth Creek will add progression parks at Waterville Valley and Sierra-at-Tahoe.


Tweaking the Terrain
Several resorts have literally reshaped the learning process. In the summer of 2004, Winter Park revamped its beginner area, Sorensen Park, at the mountain’s base, expanding it from 1/2 acre to 5, adding a second Magic Carpet (140 feet each), and installing an 800-foot platter lift. “We dialed in the steepness to get it just right for beginners,” says Winter Park ski and ride school director Bob Barnes. “With a 4 percent to 10 percent grade, it’s the perfect progression for people learning to ski and snowboard.”

After about two and a half hours, says Barnes, beginners load the Gemini quad to Discovery Park, a gentle plateau right above Sorensen. The area has expanded Discovery from 5 to 7 acres, and added a 700-foot platter; three chairlifts also service the terrain.

With this increase in learning terrain, “we could handle a lot more beginners, so we decided to offer a great package deal,” notes Barnes. He came up with the name Easy Start for the combination half-day lesson and all-day lift ticket for $39 (rental gear costs $10 extra); each guest can purchase the package for up to three visits. In the program’s first season, 2004-05, 39 percent more guests took a first-time ski or ride lesson, and 27 percent of all first-timers returned for another lesson. For the 2005-06 season, Easy Start experienced a 63 percent gain over the previous winter. The package price will remain the same for 2006-07. “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” says Barnes. “Our ultimate goal is to make lifelong skiers and riders.”


A Model to Inspire
Hunter Mountain’s Hunter One learning area takes this concept even further. It has 14 beginner-friendly trails, some which were regraded when the resort’s Learning Center opened in 2001. Hunter’s Learning Center, in fact, offers much more than just novice-specific terrain. The $7 million, 33,000-square-foot, one-stop shop houses the snowsports school, kids’ programs, and rental fleets. The aim is to provide a seamless introduction for first-timers. (For details, see “A New Welcome Mat,” SAM May 2002.)

The initiation begins before a guest even reaches the resort—Hunter’s website features a “learn to ski or snowboard” guide that offers information on fitness levels, appropriate clothing, proper ways of carrying equipment, the rental process, and what to expect in a lesson. “We learned that 70 percent or so of folks were going online before they came,” says Rob Megnin, director of sales and marketing at Hunter, “and so we decided to give them a welcome mat.”

When they arrive at the Learning Center, guests are greeted by a staffer and then “they have their hand held while going through the product mix,” says Megnin. With gear in hand, newcomers then head out to the back deck, where instructors are waiting to group them into lessons (ideally with a six-to-one student/instructor ratio), and then slide right onto the snow to begin skiing or riding. In addition to hour-and-a-half lessons held at designated times, Hunter provides group lessons on demand.

As another courtesy, a red dot is marked on all lift tickets sold with novice lesson packages, so that Hunter staffers can recognize the guest is a first-timer. “It goes with our guest-service focus,” explains Megnin. “We spent a lot of time talking about the learn-to process and why it’s important to make that person’s first trial a good one.”

Megnin and his team have tried a variety of packages and pricing for the learn-to-ski-or-ride program. A lift/lesson/rental package has been available individually or in a “Try-Pak” of three. Last season, to boost lesson returns, the Single-Pak, as it’s called, was offered for $64, with the Try-Pak at $89. Ticket sellers earned commissions on the latter, to spur Try-Pak purchases. The strategy worked, as 4,000 more people bought the package of three lessons than during the previous season, says Megnin.

The resort’s next challenge, he says, is figuring out how best to turn more trial skiers and riders into core customers. “We found there’s a whole cadre of people at different ability and confidence levels after their third visit. Some are ready to go into a season pass, some into value cards [which give lift-ticket discounts], some into other lesson and ticket products. Offering a one-size-fits-all product won’t work.”


What’s Next?
No matter how great a beginner package a resort offers, new skiers and riders won’t become frequent guests if they’re immediately hit with the sticker shock of a full-day lift ticket and equipment rental. Easing them into the expense of skiing, until they’re really committed to the sport, seems a smart approach, but resorts differ in the incentives they offer.

Perhaps the sweetest deal comes from SolVista, which gives a free season pass to those who go through the two-day learn to ski or ride package—between 600 and 700 guests last season, says ski school director Raney. Winter Park gave Easy Start participants a resort discount card during the program’s first season but nothing last winter; this year’s follow-up package is still being determined.

In the past, Hunter direct-mailed an offer called the Grad-Pak to people who completed the Try-Pak program; the mailing included a swipe card that, when activated at the resort, was good for another deal on a lesson/lift/rental trio at a more advanced level. Activation levels were comparatively low, however, and, Megnin says the area is retooling and rebranding this transitional product for the upcoming season.

Megnin also muses on how best to measure the success of a program like Hunter’s in converting newcomers into committed skiers and riders. “If success is defined as getting more people on snow, we’ve done that,” he says. “The number of people coming through has increased, even though snow conditions have been marginal the last three seasons. We’re doing something right. But is that the benchmark of success we should use?”

His answer: not by a long shot. “We’re looking to turn someone into a lifelong participant and capture that lifelong income stream that that brings,” he says. After six years of the NSAA Growth Initiative, that remains the elusive goal.