Japanese skiing: A harbinger of things to come?

Not so long ago, Japan was the number one ski market in the world, in terms of equipment sold with some 2.5 million pairs of skis sold in 1992.

Today, it's crawling at about one-fifth of that. While less so than Japan, the sales of ski equipment worldwide have also dipped these past 20 years, but skier-days, a measure of ski resort visitation, has remained pretty constant in North America and in the European Alps.

No so in Japan, where participation that was in the 100 million range in 1992 has kept on dipping by about one-third in recent years, from 19 to about 13 million (the USA is around 56 million). Ski industry analysts attribute this decline to several factors such as a the county's continued economic stagnation, its aging population, a lack of good amenities at resorts and the national addiction to video games via mobile phones and computers that is cannibalizing the disposable income that normally would go to pay for skiing.

According to a New York Times article “Teenagers and young adults often spend $200 a month for hand-held games, messaging, news services and ring tones...” The obvious question might be: could this also happen in North America or in the Alps?”

Quite likely if the industry doesn't pay sufficiently attention to the market forces that compete against snow sports and if resorts keep on becoming both too complacent and expensive!