Ski Vermont Celebrates Record Season with Nearly 4.7 Million Visits
Jay Peak, VT (PRWEB) June 22, 2015 -- Gathering at Jay Peak Resort for the Vermont Ski Areas Association’s 46th Annual Meeting, the Vermont ski industry celebrated a record breaking 2014-15 season with 4,670,903 skier and rider visits. Vermont topped the previous record from 2001 due to another record early opening with ideal conditions for the state’s enhanced snowmaking, the epic parade of snow storms that gave Vermont the most snow of any state in the continental US, and the national story of the season that Vermont was the place to be for powder. Nationally, preliminary numbers show Vermont among just a few states in the country - and the only one in the Northeast - with increased visits.
“A near-perfect winter in Vermont allowed for both early openings and extended season operations, leading to the best season on record,” said VSAA President Parker Riehle. “The abundant snowstorms and our statewide snowmaking prowess created ideal conditions for visitors, with widespread press coverage that helped us get the word out that Vermont was the place to ski and ride this season.”
The other top story of the season was the Great Snow Gun Roundup, which enabled Vermont resorts to make more snow with significantly less energy, compressed air and water through Efficiency Vermont’s program that replaced 2,255 inefficient snow guns with 2,721 state-of-the-art low energy guns at 13 resorts – the largest ever snow gun upgrade in the industry’s history. Proceeds from the scrapped guns were generously matched by HKD Snowmakers to substantially boost marketing efforts for Ski Vermont’s Learn to Turn programs.
The strong snow and record visits were also welcome news to the Vermont economy, netting nearly $220 million for the state’s coffers in winter season revenues from the sales tax and the rooms & meals tax. Overall, those revenues increased 4%, with the rooms & meals tax revenue alone topping last season by 8%.
This year also saw record increases for Ski Vermont in earned media, Learn to Turn program sales and the Check In to Win program. Once again, several Vermont resorts garnered numerous state and national awards for conversion efforts, hospitality, workplace wellness and environmental excellence. A full list can be found at skivermont.com
At the annual gathering, with an attendance of nearly 300 industry members and marketing partners, National Ski Areas Association President Michael Berry presented the keynote address on the importance of the Millennial generation (ages 18-34) that has emerged as the largest group of snow sports participants. Former Stratton Mountain Resort President and VSAA Board Chair Sky Foulkes was presented with the Industry Achievement Award and Career Employee Awards were presented to Louis Carter of Jay Peak Resort, Larry Pierce of Sugarbush Resort, Paul Roy of Mount Snow Resort, and Barry Shonio of Stowe Mountain Resort.
Ski Vermont (Vermont Ski Areas Association) is a proud ambassador of the thriving winter tourism industry in Vermont, where the legislature has designated skiing and snowboarding as the official state sports. Vermont is not only the #1 ski state in the east and third in the US, but also reigns supreme in snowmaking quality and coverage, variety of terrain and historical impact on the sports of skiing and snowboarding - making it one of the most significant ski and ride destinations in the world. Ski Vermont’s mission is to help create a legislative, economic and social environment in which the state's ski areas can grow and prosper. It serves its 20 Alpine and 29 Nordic member resorts in three major areas: Governmental Affairs, Marketing and Public Affairs.
Sarah Wojcik, Ski Vermont, http://www.skivermont.com, +1 (802) 223-2439, [email protected]
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