In early June, with winter over and the snow melted, resorts were kicking off their warm-season business with mountain coasters, zip lines, adventure parks, and all manner of summer activities coming online. In addition to these summertime mainstays, weddings, special events, concerts, and mountain biking are major draws.

At press time, the summer season was just getting started and the busy months were still ahead.

“Our summer Adventure Park is always slower to start until kids are fully out of school,” said Marsha Hovey, marketing director at Trollhaugen, Wis. “We open up for the season Memorial Day weekend, but the first few weeks are less visited than the big banger months of July and August.”

Bike Parks: New and Expanded

Resorts continue to expand their lift-served mountain biking operations as the popularity and business potential of the sport grows. 

Ober Mountain, Tenn., which has long had a variety of family-friendly activities during the non-winter months, is expanding its summer offerings under new owners, including construction of the only lift-served downhill mountain bike park in Tennessee.

The bike park opened in May 2023 and has been served by the Black Lift, which is one of two chairlifts being replaced this summer, said VP of sales and marketing Amy Warner. 

UTV-served, for now. While construction of the new fixed-grip quad is underway, mountain bikers are being transported to the top via UTV. “That adds a fun experience to their visit,” said Warner, adding that some downhill mountain bike trails and other activities will be temporarily closed during construction of the new lifts. 

Bolton Valley, Vt., is in the midst of a multi-year build that has reintroduced lift-served downhill mountain biking at the resort after more than a decade hiatus. The resort hired Gravity Logic to lead the design and build. 

Trail construction was greatly hampered last summer by record rainfall.

“As we learned last year, mountain biking is just as variable with the weather as skiing, if not more so since there’s not really an equivalent to snowmaking for summer,” said president and CEO Lindsay DesLauriers. “We’re hoping for a drier season and looking forward to regaining some momentum there.”

Long-term investment. Bolton will bring on two new blue trails this summer—one completely new trail and one a re-worked, pre-existing black diamond. DesLauriers said the bike park is a long-term investment. 

“We’re not expecting to see a quick ROI on this, but we do expect it to be profitable,” she said. “We’re using our lists, paying for marketing, and engaging in some grassroots outreach and promotional efforts. It’s basically a new business, so we need to get the word out that we’re here and get people to come give it a try.”

Asked about unexpected challenges of offering lift-served downhill mountain biking, DesLauriers mentioned maintenance. “I knew, but maybe still underestimated, how much trail crew it takes to maintain the park,” she said. “Trail maintenance is constant and demanding.”

Purposeful expansions. Copper Mountain, Colo., home to Woodward’s summer on-snow camps, will add an additional 20 miles of bike trails to its existing 24 miles of mostly beginner and intermediate terrain in the coming years.

“We’re designing trails focused on progression and skill development,” said Copper communications and philanthropy manager Olivia Butrymovich. 

West Mountain, N.Y., is also adding more mountain bike trails, including a race trail “so we can start offering high-level bike races,” said owner Sara Montgomery.

Wedding Business

Many resorts also continue to expand their wedding business. Butrymovich said Copper’s new mid-mountain lodge, Aerie, has become a popular new wedding venue this summer. 

Bolton Valley, in only its second summer of hosting weddings, is already fully booked. “We are completely booked from Memorial Day into November,” DesLauriers said. “This is consistent with last year, which was our first year doing weddings. Next year’s bookings are also looking strong.”

Seeking growth. Warner said Ober is looking to grow its wedding business. 

Ditto at West Mountain. “We have several special events booked, but not many weddings,” Montgomery said. “We are looking to join The Knot (a wedding planning website) to increase our wedding bookings.” The ski area had a call scheduled with people from The Knot in June to start that process. 

With no on-site lodging, she said food and beverage and site fees will be the primary revenue source. 

Red Mountain in British Columbia has about a half dozen weddings on the books for this summer, said marketing director Erik Kerr. On resort, Red offers the main floor of the lodge and the outdoor deck for a surprisingly affordable site fee of CAD$2,300 plus a CAD$4,000 catering minimum.     

Other resorts are cutting back on weddings, for different reasons.

“We have really put the brakes on weddings and events this summer as we try to keep operational costs to a minimum,” said Hovey at Trollhaugen. “With so many wedding venues in the area, it’s hard to compete, so we focus on our strong suit of outdoor adventure.”

Snow Valley Ski Club in Edmonton, Alberta (which rebrands as Snow Valley Aerial Park and Rainbow Valley Campground in summer), is also reducing weddings—to not be too busy with them. 

“We’ve limited weddings to no more than two from Friday to Sunday, so it’s slightly down but better [for] staff retention,” said Tim Dea, marketing and communications manager.  

Small But Growing

Summer revenue is still a small but growing piece of the overall revenue pie for most resorts.

“Anecdotally, it’s around 25 percent and growing,” Dea said. “Winter is our main revenue source, but it’s also our main expense—snowmaking with city water, power, labor, etc.”

“Summer offerings are a small piece of our yearly revenue,” said Hovey at Trollhaugen. “We haven’t quite seen the return on summer offerings like we would hope to, and are working on ways to problem solve.”

Making adjustments. She said Trollhaugen was adjusting prices to try and attract more locals and exploring more facilitated experiences to try and tap the group and corporate market.

“Our goal for our summer Adventure Park is to equally attract groups and families,” said Hovey. “It has been a challenge to reach that corporate market as the traditional office culture has shifted so much. The team-bonding activities of yesteryear look so much different, and we are doing our best to try and find those audiences.”

Profitable events. Kerr said “summer is cranking” at Red Mountain, where the resort’s Red Teeth: A Mountain Wine Festival on June 15 was expected to be about 85 percent sold out in advance. Other events like July’s Beer Goggles craft brew festival—which includes the Clam Slam Caesar Showdown (a decidedly Canadian competition where local bartenders compete for who makes the best Caesar, which is like a bloody Mary made with clamato)—draw a crowd.

At Bolton, DesLauriers said summer revenue has increased to about 20 percent overall as the resort works to build that business, “but our bottom line has yet to improve.”

Patience. “The cost of operating the bike park and full summer operation is significant and inflation has continued to push hard on us across the board,” she said. “That being said—we are early in our summer operations and there is still lots of room for growth, so we expect that to improve. 

“It’s a bit of a patience game and growing summer business is harder and slower than winter because it’s not established and there’s a lot of competition for business in summer,” she continued. “It’s not like winter where skiing is the number-one outdoor activity. Getting people up here in the summer is more challenging, but we believe it’s critical to solve for summer—not only for the added financial stability, but also for staff retention. That has been a huge help to us.”

WILDFIRES, LIGHTNING STRIKES, AND HEAT WAVES, OH MY!

With extreme weather becoming more common, resort operators are keeping a wary eye on the sky. While weather events often lead to operational disruption, not all are of equal cause for concern.

The heat is on. For example, heat can be more a marketing opportunity for mountain resorts than a guest deterrent.

“We are at an elevation of 2,700 feet,” said Ober Mountain, Tenn., VP of sales and marketing Amy Warner. “Normally we are about 5-7 degrees cooler than downtown Gatlinburg.”

At Snow Valley Ski Club in Edmonton, Alberta, marketing and communications manager Tim Dea said the average temperature from June 1 to Sept. 30, 2023, was 22.7 degrees Celsius (about 73 degrees Fahrenheit), with only five days over 30 (86 Fahrenheit). “We monitor staff, and if it’s very cold or very hot, offer them more breaks. We tell guests to bring water and sunscreen.”

Air quality. Of course, wildfires can be a problem, but the smoke from faraway fires is more often an issue that ski areas must be aware of and message about. When air quality is poor, “warnings are amplified through social media when smoke is in the area,” said Dea.

Lightning flashes. And for many, lightning is top of mind. “Lightning has the biggest impact on our summer operations,” said Copper Mountain, Colo., communications and philanthropy manager Olivia Butrymovich.

Snow Valley “closes when lightning is in the area and stays closed until 30 minutes after the last thunder,” Dea said.

Rain, rain, go away. Weather refunds generally aren’t given, but weather, especially rain, can be a business killer.

“The rain last year had a real negative impact on our mountain biking business,” said Bolton Valley, Vt., president and CEO Lindsay DesLauriers. “The trails were harder to maintain, and there was just not a lot of business.”

Heat, on the other hand, is welcome.

“One of our slogans in summer is ‘It’s cooler up here’ because it’s usually around 8 degrees cooler at Bolton Valley than in Burlington, so it’s a great way to get out of the heat most of the time!”