Anticipating a tough winter season

I'm one of the few that think the upcoming snow season will be a challenging one in terms of destination visitors, and I've been advocating two simple action items: Make multiple-day lift tickets more attractive and improve our product, that is, begin an interconnect between at least two of our three resorts. Yesterday, the most recent data from Mountain Travel Research Program (MTRiP) shows that destination travel continues to struggle and that the battle might get even more ferocious as winter bookings begin to trickle in. While summer destination business was down, so far, between 10 to 15% in spite of a 10% drop in prices, early bookings for December show that destination resorts continue to decrease rates, up to 20%, compared to last year. Ralf Garrison, the study's author aptly says that “if demand isn’t there, price alone won’t motivate travelers,” which clearly indicates that 2009/2010 will see a fierce battle for market share and it would be nice if at least a couple of our three Park City resorts proactively took the steps I suggested before we all feel sorry for ourselves...