Utah’s ski season is hopefully beginning in just a few weeks. And the man in charge of promoting “The Greatest Snow on Earth” says he’s optimistic.
We talked to the CEO of Ski Utah, Nathan Rafferty, shortly after he delivered his report on the State of the Ski Season.
Rafferty said if the upcoming season has half the powder they saw in 2018-19 , he will be excited.
The only problem they had with last year, he said, is that it had to follow the weak winter season of the year before that.
“We didn’t get off to the start that we could’ve because of that low snow the previous year. That’s not the case this year. So everybody remembers what an unbelievable year we had last year. And it wasn’t just in Utah, it was all over the West. So skiiers generally have very short memories. They only remember back to their last powder day. And for a lot of people, that was just a few short months ago. So it’s great for season pass sales, it’s great for advance bookings. We are in as good a shape as we can be. We had that early cold snap and some snow to get people excited. And as soon as it starts snowing here in the next couple of weeks, we’re gonna be ready to rock n roll.”
Last season, spending for ski-and-snowboarding activities was close to $1.7 billion in the state, and that’s compared to a total of $9 billion spent for tourism in Utah.
Meanwhile, the Legislature has provided $25 million in marketing dollars to support tourism—an industry, Rafferty said, that has been fairly stable even through the economic downturn of 10 years ago.
He agreed that while last season wasn’t a record in terms of powder, it set a peak in skier-days.
“We broke an all-time record here in terms of skier-visits, 5.1 million skier-visits last year-- that was our first time over the 5 million mark—and a full million skier-visits more than the previous season, with such a challenging snow year. And I think you’re right. It didn’t break any records for snowfall, but, man, it felt like it should’ve. Because there was just so much snow last year. It was so incredible. I feel like the winter just barely ended, honestly, with skiing going all the way to July 4th at Snowbird.”
Meanwhile, the expansion of the Salt Lake Airport won’t be finished for this year, but ultimately will be a big deal.
“It was built in the Sixties to handle 10 or 11 million passengers a year. And the last year alone, our airport did 23 million passengers. So we sorely needed this upgrade. It’ll keep all the convenience of our old airport, but add a real modern and Wow factor, when the first and last thing people see when they come to our state to visit it, whether it’s for business, visit family, come skiing or snowboarding.”
The upgrade will just add to the ease of access that already exists to Utah’s ski resorts.
“Now the rental cars are gonna be right on site. You’re not gonna have to get on a bus and take it, y’know, ten miles down the road to get in and out. And you can land at the airport and be here in Park City in 30 minutes. I mean, that doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world.”
But Utah’s ski business also has challenges—like the traffic congestion in the Cottonwood Canyons, or on Park City’s main arteries.
Rafferty said they are committed to making sure the travel experience for customers equals their ski experience. And improvements are underway.
“The town of Park City here has a great new app that’ll I think really streamline things, and help things along for the many thousands of employees that come in and out of our town. The Cottonwood Canyons have a ride app that they’ve been working on for a while that will also help get both visiting skiiers and snowboarders and their employees up and down the canyon. Huge kudos to UTA, who has increased ridership for this coming season between 26 and 28 percent in those two canyons over there.”
And finally, many of Utah’s ski resorts are working hard on Sustainability.
“I think about half of them have full-time Sustainability directors there. About half of them have public electric-vehicle charging stations. Ten of our resorts have gone plastic-and straw-free. Alta does a super job. They planted 1500 trees last year alone. Y’know, at Ski Utah we don’t have a big carbon footprint. But we continue to push public transit, and ride sharing through our app.”
The CEO for Ski Utah, Nathan Rafferty.
