Utah ski industry looks to enjoy third straight record season

By Brice Wallace

Pardon the pun, but Utah’s ski resorts have been on a run.

And they want to see it continue. Coming off two record seasons, the state’s resorts are hoping that 2017-18 is a repeat.

“Last year was an all-time record,” Nathan Rafferty, Ski Utah’s president, said at a recent season kickoff news conference. “The season before that was an all-time record as well. We’re crossing our fingers and looking forward to what we hope to be a third record season in a row.

“We have a ton of momentum. That’s always important in our industry. Skiers have short memories, and what they remember of last season was pretty darned good. There was a lot of good skiing. So, momentum is on our side, for sure.”

The Utah industry last season had nearly 4.6 million skier days (defined as one person visiting a ski area for all or any part of a day or night for the purpose of skiing/snowboarding), topping the nearly 4.46 million level set the prior season. The lowest skier-day total in Utah during the past 10 years was about 3.8 million in 2011-12.

{mprestriction ids="1,3"}At the brink of this season, some of Utah’s resorts have seen snowfall and others have been making snow.

“This reminds me a lot of last year, where we had some question, I think,” Rafferty said. “November is hand-wringing month, especially if you’re in the ski business. … We started a little bit late last year, but I’ll remind you that we ended up having a great, great ski season, with Brighton kind of topping the charts at 633 inches on the year and 200 inches of snow in the month of January. We are excited, and there’s nobody more anxious than the people in this room to get out and go skiing.”

The industry has been involved in marketing in California, Texas, New York, Australia, the United Kingdom and France, while the Utah Office of Tourism has been running ads in Los Angeles and New York. Utah’s tourist attractions generate nearly $8.2 billion annually in visitor spending, including a $1.4 billion impact from the ski industry.

“That is important because we use that funding,” Rafferty said. “Tourism-related tax revenue helps pave our roads, educate our kids. Over a billion dollars in local and state taxes come into the state because of tourism.”

The ski industry also has more than 20,000 employees, part of the 142,000 people in Utah working in the tourism industry.

During the news conference, Rafferty noted that many Utah resorts have changed ownership or consolidated in recent years, but he saw that as a positive.

“I think it’s an indication of people wanting to do business in Utah,” he said. “Our ski industry has been on a tear — two record years of this being the place to be — so we’ve seen a lot of attention, and I think it’s just going to bring a spotlight and some more attention to our state, so, good things for our industry.”

Looking at the longer term, he also said the industry would back a potential bid for Utah to host the Olympic Winter Games in either 2026 or 2030.

“Either way, Utah’s ski industry is highly supportive of pursuing these Games,” he said. “We saw a lot of great infrastructure improvements [and] we saw a big bump in skier-days for several years after the Games in 2002, and we’d be looking for the same after the Games hopefully coming up.”

Among the Utah resorts already open for the season are Alta Ski Area, Brighton Resort, Deer Valley Resort, Park City Mountain, Snowbasin Resort and Snowbird Resort.

Upcoming openings will be Dec. 2 at Deer Valley Resort and Solitude Mountain; Dec. 8 at Sundance Mountain Resort, Dec. 9 at Nordic Valley Resort, Dec. 18 at Cherry Peak Resort, and Dec. 21 at Eagle Point Resort. Opening dates for Beaver Mountain, Brian Head Resort and Powder Mountain have not been set.{/mprestriction}