In this issue (page 54), our financial guru, Jeff Harbaugh, tackles the industry's annual Economic Analysis again. More importantly, he brings up a really good point in his discussion: Whatever happened to our focus on trial and conversion and the Model for Growth? It is something that has been weighing on my mind, too. NSAA correctly pointed out in 2000 that a beginner drop-out rate of 85 percent and a conversion rate of only 15 percent are not good numbers. They urged us to ask ourselves what it is about our sport that was driving people away in droves after only a few trys. NSAA president Michael Berry called on us to increase that trial and conversion rate just a small percentage each year, and promised the exponential payoff would be huge. Our goal, he said, would be a conversion rate of 25 percent, which would lead to 67.2 million skier visits by 2015, but to do nothing, we would see a drop-off during that same period to 37.9 million visits.

Granted, since then, when we look at our skier visit numbers, we've seen more good news than bad. Last year's record-breaker of 60.1 million visits made us all raise our glasses. In fact, 05/06 was a record-breaker with 58.9 million following 02/03's record-breaker of 57.6 million. That's a lot of record-breaking seasons for an industry that was supposed to be on the decline. It's also a lot of records considering that conversion needle has barely budged a single percent.

So, why the increased skier visits without an increase in conversion? My opinion, for whatever it's worth, is that we are doing a fairly good job of keeping our core customers pretty stoked-and by core customer I mean those Baby Boomers and snowboarders (thank God for snowboarding!). We're also extending our ski seasons with fancy snowmaking equipment. But, we still face the same problem: how are we going to fill the gap when these Baby Boomers start to drop out? How do we fill the gap when our core customers are losing their jobs? We need to do a better job of trial and conversion, that's how.

I'm a realist. I understand that winter sports are not for everyone. So our conversion rate is always going to be on the low side, as compared to say, snorkeling in the Caribbean. But, still, there has to be something we can do to get that conversion number trending upward.

We all know areas who put everything they had behind better conversion by building new learning centers, revamping beginner terrain, installing beginner-friendly conveyor lifts and so on. And it has worked, to some extent.

Still other areas tackled it from a different angle by getting more people to try our sport, thereby increasing the number of people who became core, but still not increasing conversion. They went after ethnic markets, school kids, you name it, all of which are great ideas.

So, clearly there is no magic bullet, but I caution us not to lose this idea of increasing our trial and conversion. While our numbers are fairly stable at the moment, we musn't lose sight of the fact that we still face an uncertain future. True, the dire predictions of almost 10 years ago have not panned out, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't still be trying. Isn't it always a good idea to grow participation?

We've got an Olympics hitting our continent next year-that's a perfect time to spotlight just how cool sliding on our slopes can be. No, it's not for everyone, but there are still enough people out there who are willing to give it a whirl. We should stand up and be seen during this time. And, above all, we should never rest on our laurels and lose sight of that magic 25-percent conversion rate. It's still worth striving for. \