 |
| Photo Credit: Valle Nevado |
The Ski Channel has published a report that California's Mammoth Mountain and Chile's Valle Nevado resort have concluded an agreement granting certain privileges to each's season passholders.
In essence, the partnership is a reciprocity agreement. Season passholders at either resort will receive 7 free ski days at the other. Mammoth's 2012-2013 passholders have until October 2012 to use their passes at Valle Nevado. (More lawyerly fine print can be found here.) While the collaboration is clearly a positive for both communities of skiers, it also is smart business.
Pardon the pun, but both resorts are giving away ice in the wintertime. If you combined the number of Mammoth passholders with houses in Chile with the number of Valle Nevado passholders living in California, I'd be willing to bet you'd get less than a dozen. Moreoever, Chilean residents are not eligible for the benefits. In other words, passholders will almost certainly have to fly a long way to take advantage of their new perks. People who travel a long way generally stay in hotels. And wouldn't you know it, both Valle Nevado and Mammoth have hotels!
In that regard it's a brilliant promotion. The deal sounds better than it really is when you consider other common lodging packages. Numerous resorts offer "ski free" programs where they provide free lift tickets to anyone staying in a resort-owned property. Others (e.g. Jay Peak) offer discounts to those with season passes from other mountains. The Mammonth-Valle Nevado reciprocity agreement is simply a nice marketing twist on something that's been going on in the industry for a long time.
Those of you who have read my golf law blog, Tee, Esq., have probably heard me preach that creative reciprocal relationships are the future of the golf industry. If done correctly, such relationships can be great ways to increase revenue. In the golf context, I strongly believe the Outpost Club is a great example of how the reciprocity model can create "win-win" partnerships for clubs and members.
Of course, the ski industry is a slightly different animal since access is not an issue. With the exception of an ever-shrinking handful of private ski areas, all are open to the public. Access notwithstanding, room for cooperation certainly exists and not just amongst resorts with common ownership, though joint passes like Vail's Epic Pass have proven just how successful the model can be. Reciprocal arrangements add value for both resorts' passholders and often can be the reason a passholder chooses to visit one resort over another.
For example, I probably never would have visited Arapahoe Basin on my first trip to Colorado, except for the fact that A-Basin offered a free day as part of the Vail Resorts' pass I had at the time. I went, loved it, and will be back. They made me a repeat customer and it cost them nothing. Actually, I'm certain I bought lunch so they still made a few bucks off my "free" day. Also consider that lift tickets have no real cost to a resort. They're simply a license. The resort will run whether 100 or 2,000 people ski on any given day.
In the course of my law practice I have drafted several reciprocity agreements. It has been my experience that if done correctly the sneak peak provided by limited access often results in an astonishingly high number of conversions (i.e. from guest to member or first time visitor to regular).
More resorts would do well to consider being similarly creative. After all if you're going to give away ice (or better yet snow...) in the winter, it might as well be to a skier.
In that regard it's a brilliant promotion. The deal sounds better than it really is when you consider other common lodging packages. Numerous resorts offer "ski free" programs where they provide free lift tickets to anyone staying in a resort-owned property. Others (e.g. Jay Peak) offer discounts to those with season passes from other mountains. The Mammonth-Valle Nevado reciprocity agreement is simply a nice marketing twist on something that's been going on in the industry for a long time.
Those of you who have read my golf law blog, Tee, Esq., have probably heard me preach that creative reciprocal relationships are the future of the golf industry. If done correctly, such relationships can be great ways to increase revenue. In the golf context, I strongly believe the Outpost Club is a great example of how the reciprocity model can create "win-win" partnerships for clubs and members.
Of course, the ski industry is a slightly different animal since access is not an issue. With the exception of an ever-shrinking handful of private ski areas, all are open to the public. Access notwithstanding, room for cooperation certainly exists and not just amongst resorts with common ownership, though joint passes like Vail's Epic Pass have proven just how successful the model can be. Reciprocal arrangements add value for both resorts' passholders and often can be the reason a passholder chooses to visit one resort over another.
For example, I probably never would have visited Arapahoe Basin on my first trip to Colorado, except for the fact that A-Basin offered a free day as part of the Vail Resorts' pass I had at the time. I went, loved it, and will be back. They made me a repeat customer and it cost them nothing. Actually, I'm certain I bought lunch so they still made a few bucks off my "free" day. Also consider that lift tickets have no real cost to a resort. They're simply a license. The resort will run whether 100 or 2,000 people ski on any given day.
In the course of my law practice I have drafted several reciprocity agreements. It has been my experience that if done correctly the sneak peak provided by limited access often results in an astonishingly high number of conversions (i.e. from guest to member or first time visitor to regular).
More resorts would do well to consider being similarly creative. After all if you're going to give away ice (or better yet snow...) in the winter, it might as well be to a skier.
*********************************
No comments:
Post a Comment