Locals boost business at ski resorts

The Utah ski market is not selling as many tickets this season. Considering circumstances, that's no surprise.

Consensus is, however, numbers are not off by as much as some predicted, thanks, in part, to locals.

In past season, it has been difficult getting locals to the slopes with any regularity. Locals exercise the opportunity to ski on what they see as perfect days, which could be days that are warm and sunny or knee-deep in powder.

This year, resorts contacted report seeing noticeable increases in the number of local skiers buying passes.

Dave Fields, marketing director at Snowbird, feels its due in part, "To just how good the conditions have been. I can't think of a year where I've had so many people approach me at the end of a run and say, 'That was the best powder run of my life.' We really have had some exceptional days."

The last major storm took Utah's main measuring stick, Alta, over the 400-inch mark for the season. Brighton also went over the 400-inch mark with the last storm.

"At some resorts," said Jessica Kunzer, director of communications for Ski Utah, "we're at 130 percent of normal for snow totals.

"It's helped, too, that in between storms we've had some nice bluebird days. Utah resorts have also been offering some pretty exceptional deals that people are taking advantage of."

Resort officials contacted also believe that many of those locals who are skiing are more price conscious this season.

Season pass sales, for example, were up almost across the board.

"Also, what's interesting this year is the last-minute bookings. In that area it's been a rough winter. You can't exhale. You walk into a week and you'll be 60 percent of budget and by the end of the week you're 90 percent. People are looking for deals and I think airlines are driving a lot of this by dropping fares," said Coleen Reardon with Deer Valley.

"But, it isn't as bad as we might have guessed in early December. Things looked pretty dire then. It looks now like we'll end with a decent winter. It's not going to be a record, but remember we're coming off six years of record-breaking winters. In the big picture we're doing a lot better than a lot of industries."

Danielle Hale, communications director at Brighton, said, "We do a lot of promotions where people can ski for less. We had a promotion (two weeks ago), for example, where we had 600 more people participate than we had a year ago for the same promotion.