Killington Tickets = Less Value

[da Pimp]

I think that anyone and everyone that skis or rides needs to exert maximum written and electronic pressure on Killington or POWDR for the next 6 months to demand that they reverse their idiotic attempt to shorten our weekend and holiday service. This subtle little byline in the season pass fine print might be a warning shot across the public bow - if the consumer does not object very much, they will win. Start speaking to every damn employee with a badge in no uncertain terms short of profanity.

I am also concerned that there might be a collusion of sorts going on. I need to see how the other Vt region mountains respond. If all the competition drops the first 30 minutes, K will be like one of the pack. Remember when all the access road establishments banded together to drop free HH wings? (cept for Yoshi, thank you).

How about cutting the last half hour? Trails are very quiet then, the conditions are the worst of any given day, and it gets dark pretty early a lot of winter days. Certainly less of a loss than the first half hour.

I do not see them dropping ticket prices by 1/16 (30 minutes off an 8 hour operations limit) and I do not see any competitive postition except that all the other mountains are going to have a competitive advantage over K. It sounds like an arrogant POWDR decision based on wanting to save more electricity and labor hours. I am certain that someone well off who also does not ski or ride or pays 80-something bucks a day made the decision, wrote it up as a cost savings necessitated by the economy. It should really be - what can we do better, bigger, more professional to win back the lost business?

The public feedback message should be loud and clear along the following lines:

Killington = Less Value

Killington Wants More From You, and Will Gives You Less Next year

Penny Wise, POWDR Foolish.

Here Is How We Grow Our Business And Compete - Cut Services

Obviously I am pretty pissed off, more like amazed actually. I live in a coporate world, and this smells exactly like a stupid corporate decision made by someone who still has no clue about the very customers who they rely on for their income. I am tired of hearing the phrase "It's a business that needs to be run like a business". How about running the business so that it grows, your customers talk positive about you in the off-season, and your business becomes attractive instead of watered down?
There is no secret to re-capturing the 200,000-300,000 skier days lost to the competition:

1)Make the customer happy.
2)Exceed their expectations.
3)Do what others cannot or will not do.
4)Make it fun.
5)Make you feel that you made the right decision to patronize their business, because you will want to come back.

Any reasonable combination of the above would result in growth. Hint: Relying on good weather alone to provide all 5 above is a recipe for disaster and further loss of market share.

I guess the POWDR Corp. Utah arrogance wins the battle - pray for good weather and piss of the customer some more every year. Is it so far-fetched to realize that getting back those thousands of lost skier visits would line their pockets and be an attractive incentive to make customer-oriented decisions versus nickle & diming decisions?

[skiadikt]

nailed it.

[skidogg]

wear were you when skyship whent to 8:30 and 9:30? the wars over, just get over it

[shortski]

Add in the fact of closing lifts at 3pm, just started to notice signs at the Needle Eye quad yesterday also the Northridge Triple, like I said in another post pretty soon ski season will be Feb and hours will be noon till 2pm.

[steamboat1]

Penny wise, pound foolish.

Does corporate just like pissing people off.

Sure looks that way.

[Geoff]

It's what happens when you have ops people and bean counters calling the shots. Killington is down by about 25% since POWDR showed up. The state of Vermont is even with skier visits so those people simply went elsewhere.

It's really sorry to ride the Canyon quad and look at the rocks and ice on Downdraft and Double Dipper. The intermediates can't use Needles Eye or upper Bunny. The Skye Peak Express is a constant cluster-F liftline. To navigate the mountain, you have no choice but to hump across the lengthy flat in front of KBL. A lot of day ticket people paying $80-something dollars have to look at that and decide to go somewhere else the next time.

The only scary thing is that when Chris Nyberg leaves, it's entirely possible that his replacement will be worse.

[boston_e]

It's what happens when you have ops people and bean counters calling the shots. Killington is down by about 25% since POWDR showed up. The state of Vermont is even with skier visits so those people simply went elsewhere.

Exactly. Resorts not named Killington have received a signfigantly higher percentage of my dollars alloted to skiing in the past few years.

[Coydog]

Penny Wise, POWDR Foolish.

Brilliant and the rest of the post is spot on as well. I can't believe moving the opening bell up a half hour on weekends and holidays saves anywhere near enough money to justify the incredible ill will it generates, particularly if the other major NE resorts do not follow suit. Sure, in the spring it makes perfect sense to start later in the morning, but not mid-winter. I thought POWDR was beginning to make some progress in terms of understanding the East Coast skier/rider, but this move just reminds me of the "less bang for the buck" model we've all experienced since they showed up.

[FDSKIER]

call, email, post on facebook....talk to every employee you see on the mt and let them know how you feel...
have all your friends and families call. even if they dont ski...spread the word on other websites, bulletin boards, etc..
if they hear from thousands of people they might reconsider...
can anyone post direct phone numbers or email addresses?

[JerseyGuy]

That's what I get for taking a couple of days off from this place -- oh, the things you miss...

Am I reading this right? That unless you have a season pass, your day now starts a half-hour earlier? That can't possibly be right. Can it?

[Coydog]

That's what I get for taking a couple of days off from this place -- oh, the things you miss...

Am I reading this right? That unless you have a season pass, your day now starts a half-hour earlier? That can't possibly be right. Can it?

Next season, instead of starting at 8:00 am on weekends and holidays, lifts will start at 8:30 am for all skiers/riders. Penny wise - POWDR foolish.

[JerseyGuy]

That's what I get for taking a couple of days off from this place -- oh, the things you miss...

Am I reading this right? That unless you have a season pass, your day now starts a half-hour earlier? That can't possibly be right. Can it?

Next season, instead of starting at 8:00 am on weekends and holidays, lifts will start at 8:30 am for all skiers/riders. Penny wise - POWDR foolish.

Holy crap. Is this a joke? Are these idiots now TRYING to look like painfully obvious greedy bastards?

[tt431]

That's what I get for taking a couple of days off from this place -- oh, the things you miss...

Am I reading this right? That unless you have a season pass, your day now starts a half-hour earlier? That can't possibly be right. Can it?

Next season, instead of starting at 8:00 am on weekends and holidays, lifts will start at 8:30 am for all skiers/riders. Penny wise - POWDR foolish.

Holy crap. Is this a joke? Are these idiots now TRYING to look like painfully obvious greedy bastards?

THE BEAST KNOWS CUSTOMERS NEED MORE SLEEP,
GO BACK TO BED INGRATES.

[madhatter]

That's what I get for taking a couple of days off from this place -- oh, the things you miss...

Am I reading this right? That unless you have a season pass, your day now starts a half-hour earlier? That can't possibly be right. Can it?

NO! not even remotely close. which is SOP for you. EVERYONE'S day starts 1/2 hr LATER. This is why it's pointless to even attempt to have a discussion with you on anything. YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY ZERO COMPREHENSION yet insist you are brilliant and the authority on every subject. Every minute point in your above post is utterly and completely WRONG, much like your entire post history on Kzone. You ARE the 99% --- in my sig. Later jersey DOPE.

Evelyn Woodhead out

[Stormchaser]

POWDR has done this exact thing for spring skiing, and now is doing it to early morning skiing. POWDR intentionally doesn't scan lift tickets and passes for whatever period of time they want to retract services. They then used that reduced skier visit data to justify elimination of that service, when in fact the reduction is only in the number of tickets scanned, not the number of skier visits.

The loss of May skiing is a 12.5% loss of ski days at no reduction of cost to you.

An 8:30 start time is 6.25% loss of ski days at no reduction of cost to you.

A total loss of nearly 20% of your yearly ski time with no reduction of cost to you.