Downhill Slide: Why the Corp Ski Industry Is Bad for Skiing

[Vinny Vincenzo]

Downhill Slide: Why the Corporate Ski Industry Is Bad for Skiing, Ski Towns, and the Environment



http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1578051029

Book Description
In this impassioned exposé, lifelong skier Hal Clifford reveals how publicly traded corporations gained control of America's most popular winter sport during the 1990s, and how they are gutting ski towns, the natural environment, and skiing itself in a largely futile search for short-term profits.

Chronicling the collision between Wall Street's demand for unceasing revenue growth and the fragile natural and social environments of small mountain communities, Clifford shows how the modern ski industry promotes its product as environmentally friendly--even invoking the words and emblems of such environmental icons as Ansel Adams and John Muir--while at the same time creating urban-style problems for mountain villages. He also uncovers the ways in which resorts are carefully engineered to separate visitors from their money, much like theme parks.

Clifford suggests an alternative to this bleak picture in the return-to-the-roots movement that is now beginning to find its voice in American ski towns from Mammoth Lakes, California, to Stowe, Vermont. He relates the stories of creative business people who are shifting control of the ski business back to the communities that host it.
Hard-hitting and carefully researched, Downhill Slide is indispensable reading for anyone who lives in, visits, or cares about what is happening to America's alpine communities.

About the Author
Hal Clifford is the author of The Falling Season: Inside the Life and Death Drama of Aspen's Mountain Rescue Team, winner of the Colorado Council for the Arts Prize for Best Non-Fiction, and Highroad Guide to the Colorado Mountains. His work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Business Week, National Geographic Adventure, Outside, and Orion. A former editor of the Aspen Daily News and Ski Magazine, Clifford currently serves as Executive Director of Mountainfilm in Telluride, Colorado.

http://www.halclifford.com/

[legume400]

Its an interesting read. A little dry, but good information.

[skitiger]

Real estate ownership and development is badly served by the conflicting need to show quarter-to-quarter growth in profits. Corporations are generally not the best entrepreneurs.

[tombuch]

Good book, but a bit dated since original publication in 2002.

Downhill Slide catalogs the growth of the three major players in the industry; ASC, Vail Resorts, and Intrawest. The book outlines a thesis that participation in skiing is relatively flat, and that by competing with each other the three companies are boosting their costs while chasing the same limited affluent client base. As prices go up to cover the new infrastructure, the available pool of skiers decreases. The book then suggests that small ski areas are the answer to the above problem.

The first part of the thesis is very well developed. The second is lacking a bit. The book was published before the collapse of ASC, so it feels very dated, but the underlying concepts are still completely valid.

Definitely worth reading. I've shared my copy with several ski executives, and they have all disagree with much of it, but appreciate being exposed to the concepts by an articulate and well informed writer.

[BadDog]

Not dis-similar to the large corporate forays into Broadway.

Encouragingly, they have mostly failed and retreated -- with the exception of Disney, which has (to say the least) a strong entertainment background and product engine.

[RENO]

Good book, but a bit dated since original publication in 2002.

Downhill Slide catalogs the growth of the three major players in the industry; ASC, Vail Resorts, and Intrawest. The book outlines a thesis that participation in skiing is relatively flat, and that by competing with each other the three companies are boosting their costs while chasing the same limited affluent client base. As prices go up to cover the new infrastructure, the available pool of skiers decreases. The book then suggests that small ski areas are the answer to the above problem.

The first part of the thesis is very well developed. The second is lacking a bit. The book was published before the collapse of ASC, so it feels very dated, but the underlying concepts are still completely valid.

Definitely worth reading. I've shared my copy with several ski executives, and they have all disagree with much of it, but appreciate being exposed to the concepts by an articulate and well informed writer.

Welcome to KZone tombuch. Do you work in the ski industry?

[skitiger]

Disney uses Broadway as an expansion of an already successful product, i.e. Lion King, Mary Poppins, a low-risk extension of its branding to the stage, and another way to raise its position in the ENTERTAINMENT industry. It's a bit of recycling, but it's a great way to reuse what you own. The movie studios often remade the same film, reusing the script snd sometimes even the sets. Disney/Pixar reuses everything in its films.

[the Disemboweler]

Good book, but a bit dated since original publication in 2002.

Downhill Slide catalogs the growth of the three major players in the industry; ASC, Vail Resorts, and Intrawest. The book outlines a thesis that participation in skiing is relatively flat, and that by competing with each other the three companies are boosting their costs while chasing the same limited affluent client base. As prices go up to cover the new infrastructure, the available pool of skiers decreases. The book then suggests that small ski areas are the answer to the above problem.

The first part of the thesis is very well developed. The second is lacking a bit. The book was published before the collapse of ASC, so it feels very dated, but the underlying concepts are still completely valid.

Definitely worth reading. I've shared my copy with several ski executives, and they have all disagree with much of it, but appreciate being exposed to the concepts by an articulate and well informed writer.

u write like an investor/analyst/writer every industry is going thru this or has gone thru this....not sure how much shareholder value is created....the cover story this week in BW is about private equity/hedge funds portfolio companies....not sure how much better it is for customers....

[tombuch]

Welcome to KZone tombuch. Do you work in the ski industry?

Yeah, sort of. I teach snowboarding at Stratton. I had a pass at Killington for the 2001-2002 season after losing a "real" job, but when I decided to shift gears and teach for a living I choose Stratton. I've been teaching snowboarding full time for five years. I match that with a gig teaching fly fishing for Orvis in the summer, and do some skydiving instruction as well. It's a fun way to live, and certainly better than dying in a cubicle.

I currently represent the Town of Londonderry, Vermont, on the Windham Regional Commission, where I sit on the Executive Board and the Project Review Committee. In that capacity I've been very active in reviewing the Stratton master plan renewal application, and the application for a new master plan for the Haystack Club. I've also offered my own testimony in both cases. My primary focus has been on affordable workforce housing, an element that will be important if/when Killington seeks master plan approval for their new village.

Obviously I love the ski industry, and it returns the love by buttering my bread. But it’s possible to have too much of a good thing. I question the wisdom of building ever larger resorts, for an ever shrinking market. We don’t have the energy to support this continued growth, nor do we have the labor, or the housing to support the needed labor. I’d like to see the resorts solve those problems before growing further, and I’d like our government to offer a bit more ‘push back’ to drive corporate involvement in regional problem solving. Those are dreams. I know. But our world is changing, and through dreams we can define a better future. And then through political action and public policy we can make it real. Maybe.

I’m looking in on the Killington Zone every now and then. Not a lot, but some.

[Finn]

K used to model their training after Disney.......

[skip]

Rather than repeat myself (albeit on a different board)....

This topic came up on the sunday river board recently. Downhill Slide shouldn't be taken with a grain of salt - you should take it with the whole damn salt lick.

[Geoff]

Rather than repeat myself (albeit on a different board)....

This topic came up on the sunday river board recently. Downhill Slide shouldn't be taken with a grain of salt - you should take it with the whole damn salt lick.

I like Skip's Amazon review:

Downhill Slide will almost certainly play well among class warriors, ski town kvetches and the Chicken Little faction of the environmental movement. But if you're looking for objective analysis and honest debate over real issues, look elsewhere.
Hal Clifford questions almost every statement made by senior industry managers (backing many with snide comments), but treats pronouncements made by industry opponents - including some based on patently false assumptions - as gospel. In Clifford's world, ski resort managers are highly biased, but environmentalists, EPA staffers and disgruntled former ski resort and Forest Service employees are objective beyond question. This simply isn't the case. An honest assessment of the issues related to ski development would examine the motives and views of those opposed to mountain development as diligently as it does those who favor it.

Clifford assails, correctly, the piecemeal approach by which some ski areas obscured their growth plans during the permitting process. But he places all of the blame on resort operators and totally ignores the no-growth movement's direct responsibility for the creation of that tactic: subversion and abuse of regulatory and public comment processes. These abuses, which result in a staggeringly expensive and indeterminate permitting process, are well documented; it's no wonder that resorts attempted to keep their public and financial exposure small. He also ignores the fact that a growing number of progressive resorts now conduct their planning and permitting processes openly and invite environmental groups to participate. An objective book would at least acknowledge these efforts and give fair assessment of the questionable tactics used by some industry opponents.

Instead, Downhill Slide assumes that resorts and related real estate developments are uniformly creeping environmental disasters overrunning the mountains (in fact, skiing's footprint on the land is tiny; a fraction of one percent of the public lands in the mountain states are impacted by ski development). Clifford especially despises the concept of the modern ski resort village, which can be viewed as a response to the environmentally irresponsible sprawl that occurred around the base of ski areas decades ago. The new villages concentrate visitors on a small footprint, leaving more open land. So why isn't this a good thing? In Clifford's view, it's because they're built for transient guests, rather than providing a year-round haven for ski bums and colorful oddballs, and because developers can make money building them.

Clifford is correct in noting that some resort communities have essentially become second-home vacation retreats so expensive that resort workers can't afford to live there. Clearly, the industry could be more diligent in providing housing for staff. But resorts already do better job housing low-income workers than do most non-ski communities. Nor is anyone is forced to work (or live) in one.

The book's biggest stretch is the suggestion that social ills such as racism, alcoholism and domestic abuse in some areas of the Rockies are the fault of (and, by extension, the responsibility of) the ski industry. The argument is fallacious - both post hoc ergo propter hoc and as a splendid example of affirming the consequent. Clifford even implies that ski resorts are responsible for the presence of illegal aliens (apparently, that responsibilty falls to Vail, not the INS)- but cites not one case in which a ski resort ever recruited or hired an illegal alien, even by oversight.

Finally, Downhill Slide advances the premise that three companies, which between them represent about 30 percent of the US market - have driven the sport into a death spiral making the sport accessible only to the super-rich. This is utter nonsense. 30 percent of market share, split three ways, can't possibly conrol an entire industry. Besides, skiing has always been an expensive sport, and relative to disposable income - especially considering the ticket deals out there currently - skiing is actually more affordable to more people today than it was 50 years ago. That the sport hasn't grown (Clifford repeatedly hammers on that point) has far less to do with price than it does with with demographics, weather conditions over the past decade, competing recreation options and inept marketing.

Stripped to its essence, Downhill Slide is a plea - backed by fallacies of logic, appeals to pity, false dilemmas and half-baked environmental and social concerns - for things to be the way they used to be. Clifford openly states that he misses ski town life of old. Fair enough. But humans cannot freeze themselves in one moment in time. Such a freeze is what Clifford desires - and advocates - in holding up a handful of niche resorts in unique market situations as the model for how ski resorts should be run. That many ski areas which once operated in similar ways have gone out of business isn't mentioned. Nor is the fact that skiers and snowboarders vote with their wallets. Most clearly prefer the experience provided by larger resorts.

Clifford's prescription would kill skiing, not save it. He's welcome to patronize the niche resorts - indeed, they'd no doubt love his business. But to suggest their model is the only acceptable approach to skiing is arrogant beyond belief. So is Downhill Slide.

[laseranimal]

didn't we have this discussion a few years ago?


http://www.killingtonzone.com/forums/vi ... ll&start=0

[the Disemboweler]

Rather than repeat myself (albeit on a different board)....

This topic came up on the sunday river board recently. Downhill Slide shouldn't be taken with a grain of salt - you should take it with the whole damn salt lick.

I like Skip's Amazon review:

Downhill Slide will almost certainly play well among class warriors, ski town kvetches and the Chicken Little faction of the environmental movement. But if you're looking for objective analysis and honest debate over real issues, look elsewhere.
Hal Clifford questions almost every statement made by senior industry managers (backing many with snide comments), but treats pronouncements made by industry opponents - including some based on patently false assumptions - as gospel. In Clifford's world, ski resort managers are highly biased, but environmentalists, EPA staffers and disgruntled former ski resort and Forest Service employees are objective beyond question. This simply isn't the case. An honest assessment of the issues related to ski development would examine the motives and views of those opposed to mountain development as diligently as it does those who favor it.

Clifford assails, correctly, the piecemeal approach by which some ski areas obscured their growth plans during the permitting process. But he places all of the blame on resort operators and totally ignores the no-growth movement's direct responsibility for the creation of that tactic: subversion and abuse of regulatory and public comment processes. These abuses, which result in a staggeringly expensive and indeterminate permitting process, are well documented; it's no wonder that resorts attempted to keep their public and financial exposure small. He also ignores the fact that a growing number of progressive resorts now conduct their planning and permitting processes openly and invite environmental groups to participate. An objective book would at least acknowledge these efforts and give fair assessment of the questionable tactics used by some industry opponents.

Instead, Downhill Slide assumes that resorts and related real estate developments are uniformly creeping environmental disasters overrunning the mountains (in fact, skiing's footprint on the land is tiny; a fraction of one percent of the public lands in the mountain states are impacted by ski development). Clifford especially despises the concept of the modern ski resort village, which can be viewed as a response to the environmentally irresponsible sprawl that occurred around the base of ski areas decades ago. The new villages concentrate visitors on a small footprint, leaving more open land. So why isn't this a good thing? In Clifford's view, it's because they're built for transient guests, rather than providing a year-round haven for ski bums and colorful oddballs, and because developers can make money building them.

Clifford is correct in noting that some resort communities have essentially become second-home vacation retreats so expensive that resort workers can't afford to live there. Clearly, the industry could be more diligent in providing housing for staff. But resorts already do better job housing low-income workers than do most non-ski communities. Nor is anyone is forced to work (or live) in one.

The book's biggest stretch is the suggestion that social ills such as racism, alcoholism and domestic abuse in some areas of the Rockies are the fault of (and, by extension, the responsibility of) the ski industry. The argument is fallacious - both post hoc ergo propter hoc and as a splendid example of affirming the consequent. Clifford even implies that ski resorts are responsible for the presence of illegal aliens (apparently, that responsibilty falls to Vail, not the INS)- but cites not one case in which a ski resort ever recruited or hired an illegal alien, even by oversight.

Finally, Downhill Slide advances the premise that three companies, which between them represent about 30 percent of the US market - have driven the sport into a death spiral making the sport accessible only to the super-rich. This is utter nonsense. 30 percent of market share, split three ways, can't possibly conrol an entire industry. Besides, skiing has always been an expensive sport, and relative to disposable income - especially considering the ticket deals out there currently - skiing is actually more affordable to more people today than it was 50 years ago. That the sport hasn't grown (Clifford repeatedly hammers on that point) has far less to do with price than it does with with demographics, weather conditions over the past decade, competing recreation options and inept marketing.

Stripped to its essence, Downhill Slide is a plea - backed by fallacies of logic, appeals to pity, false dilemmas and half-baked environmental and social concerns - for things to be the way they used to be. Clifford openly states that he misses ski town life of old. Fair enough. But humans cannot freeze themselves in one moment in time. Such a freeze is what Clifford desires - and advocates - in holding up a handful of niche resorts in unique market situations as the model for how ski resorts should be run. That many ski areas which once operated in similar ways have gone out of business isn't mentioned. Nor is the fact that skiers and snowboarders vote with their wallets. Most clearly prefer the experience provided by larger resorts.

Clifford's prescription would kill skiing, not save it. He's welcome to patronize the niche resorts - indeed, they'd no doubt love his business. But to suggest their model is the only acceptable approach to skiing is arrogant beyond belief. So is Downhill Slide.

Stripped to its essence, Downhill Slide is a plea - backed by fallacies of logic, appeals to pity, false dilemmas and half-baked environmental and social concerns - for things to be the way they used to be.

sounds like k zone

[Mister Moose]

... the fact that skiers and snowboarders vote with their wallets. Most clearly prefer the experience provided by larger resorts.

Inescapable observation. Hence Magic struggles. Burke struggles. Powder Ridge is on the ropes. I'm sure poor decisions have helped some along into Nelsap, but the mortality rate for small areas is extremely high. How much longer will Bousqet's last?

We do get what we ask for.