The Deer Valley Resort is launching its season with a number of technology changes, on the slopes and behind the scenes, that will make the customer experience better.
Deer Valley CEO Todd Shallan said one major new development is the RFID security system, which will be scanning customers and their passes at 20 of the 21 gates.
“We had em for the summer, and we used em for summer biking. It was very smooth. I think most people are actually used to having gates. We’re a little bit behind the times in that. And we’ve tested them and tested them and we’re ready for em Saturday. (Leslie) So is it that people go through the gates or people actually have to be scanned? (Shallan) No, they go through the gates. So there’s no hand scanners. Everything is automated. And if there’s a quad chairlift, then we have four gates. If there’s a triple chairlift, then we have two gates. And it’s really meant to be, at the end of your queue, you get in line and then there’s space for—what we’ve done is spaced out so we have a little bit of a security blanket, if somebody has an issue, it’s not like they’re the next ones that get on the chair. So everyone has been spaced so we can have four sets of groups, after the gates, getting ready to get on the chairs.”
He said the system will allow them to determine how many visitors are on the mountain.
“And up until now, it’s always been a bit of a guess because we didn’t track season pass holder usage. And so now we have an exact number of where people are, what they’re using, how they’re using it. And then we can start to move our staff around the mountain when we have some data, that says well, we know this one’s gonna be busier at 10 o’clock, because the last week it has been. We can customize our experience a little bit better with more information. (Leslie) So those chips then have, you know if somebody’s a season pass holder, or a locals coupon or something like that. (Shallan) That’s correct. And then we also know how many times they’re using it, how many times they’re using a certain chairlift.”
He said the system is also important for security.
“As good as our manual ticket-checkers have been in history, we know there’s been fraud. It’s not that hard to get around the mountain and ski without seeing a ticket-checker during the day. And we think we don’t—I can’t put a number on what that is. But it just gives us better security on the mountain as well.”
Related to this, Shallan is strongly suggesting that holders of Ikon passes make reservations at the resort on days that are likely to be busy.
“It just gives us a better ability to forecast how many day tickets we can sell. Because we really want to manage that. And it worked pretty well last year. So we had I would say close to 90 percent reservation versus who showed up last year. And that really helps us forecast and make sure that we’re managing that capacity limit. We will move up and down how many daily tickets we sell based on how many season pass holders, how many tickets we’ve sold, and how many Ikon pass reservations we have.”
To make a reservation, you can go online to “Ikonres.deervalley.com”
He said they’ve also replaced or improved several IT systems at the resort.
“And one of the things I had said last year was we were very behind in technology. So we’ve replaced nine of our IT systems—from ticketing to food and beverage systems, back-office accounting systems, things that people won’t see. But all of that will help us to do things like digital signage and be able to have today’s ticket price. And it’ll allow us on several of the lifts to be able to show weather conditions, if there’s lift holds, wind holds, things like that, grooming conditions, real time. And that we’ve not had before.”
Todd Shallan, President and CEO for Deer Valley.
