What skiing should be all about

Skiing is before anything else, an experience. For many skiers who visit from a different setting or climate, it should be a transformative experience. There’s the cold, the snow, the scenic mountains and a special culture that should make all the difference. 

Ski town’s folks ought to be different and hopefully nicer, vehicular traffic shouldn’t be the nightmare it is in the cities, the pace ought to be slower, each moment should be easier, fun and everything should feel different, much like a Christmas postcard, if you see what I mean. 

A ski town should offer a refreshing culture and a stay in the mountain should be re-creating as well as recreational. All this to say that there are unfortunately variables upon which humans have no control over, such as lack of snow, poor snow quality, windstorms that stop all lifts, etc. 

These are curved balls that are thrown at us, as part of living and we better accommodate to them. 

Another element that’s crucial and even more difficult to manage, is for the ski resorts executive to research, imagine and deliver on what their customers want and that is a tough challenge as well as a moving target. 

It’s much easier though than invent an i-Phone or a Tesla automobile, but even with incremental creativity, reality proved that it’s not easy or that ski executive are not a very imaginative bunch. 

In the next blog, we’ll see how one of them (yeah, Vail Resorts) fails deliver on its “Epic Promise” to paraphrase the company’s motto...