SAM Magazine - Teton Village, WY., April 11, 2007 - Jackson Hole Mountain Resort had a good year. In fact, it was a very good year. The ski area wrapped up the 2006-2007 season by posting its second best year ever, with just over 400,000 skier visits.

The grand total clocked in at a whopping 402,400 skier visits on the year, impressive, given the fact that one of the resort's major lifts, the famed Jackson Hole Tram, was out of commission for the winter.

"To reach this figure, knowing the business climate we have weathered this season including low snow and delays in the much anticipated Bridger Restaurants is an accomplishment," said Jackson's Jerry Blann. While Blann admits that the resort's business is evolving and that skier days are no longer as important as they once were as Teton Village becomes a year-round resort, he concedes that the mountain, "still considers the skier day volume an important metric."

According to Blann, this was a particularly tough winter. "We anticipated a slight reduction in business this winter due to the reconstruction of the tram," said Blann. "But with additional challenge of low snow, we had to work incredibly hard to meet our goals. As we reflect on the season, we believe the snow was the largest single determining factor for our business levels."

For the season, revenues varied across the resort, with different departments picking up the slack. According to the resort, strong results in the Mountain Sports School and retail departments helped to offset poorer results in dining due to a partially opened restaurant. Season passholder skier days were slightly ahead of last year, but destination skier days were down. Excellent holiday and President's week business levels allowed JHMR to exceed goals at these peak times, but the lack of snow in January and March effected bookings for the last two months of the season.

"We cannot thank the local skiers and snowboarders enough," adds Blann. "We have had every weather condition possible this winter, and coming off one of our biggest snow years last year, I applaud the tenacity of all locals who just kept coming out. I also would like to praise our operations departments who kept the ski product in unbelievable shape, every day, for all our guests." \