Seattle’s main airport is surrounded by communities and has grown like a weed right along with the Seattle metropolitan area. It has no practical way to expand. Through recent technology and some clever evolution of facilities the airport authority is doing everything it can to shoehorn more passengers and flights into the same space. But […]
Airports and Mountain Resorts Read More »
Summer has been a hot topic in resort circles for years. I’ve run a couple of snowboard companies so understand what extreme, snow dependent, seasonality means. I’ve visited resorts, written about resorts, but never worked for one. SAM, I think, thought I was the right balance of insider and outsider for this assignment. At the
Peak Resorts has filed to do an initial public offering again. Here’s the link to the new S1. They first filed back in April of 2011. After a serious of amendments to their S1 filing, they withdrew it due to poor market conditions for IPOs. I analyzed their situation and initial filing back in October
Peak Resorts IPO; If, At First, You Don’t Succeed…………… Read More »
The top and bottom of Park City are owned by two different companies. They are in a fight over, naturally, money and it has the potential to mean the resort won’t open this winter. I hope it doesn’t come to that. They might find that keeping loyal customers is way easier than getting back
As If Running a Winter Resort Wasn’t Hard Enough Read More »
You may recall (or not) that about a month ago I wrote an article expressing some concern that winter resorts were targeting baby boomers. My point was that dependence on high income baby boomers couldn’t be an exclusive, long term strategy because, inconveniently, those people are going to get older sooner and stop snow sliding. When that
More on Winter Resorts Targeting Baby Boomers: I’m Not the Only One Who’s Worried Read More »
Well, you know me. I’m always a little worried about something. But hopefully, the fact that I have a tendency to bring up issues people wish would just go away is part of the reason you read me. We’ve all known that winter resorts tend to be dependent on the baby boomers for a big chunk of
Winter Resorts Targeting Baby Boomers: I’m a Little Worried. Read More »
Back on April 18th, Peak Resorts filed an S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to take the company public. There have been four amendments since then, with the latest filed September 19th. Here’s the link to that most current version of the S-1. The company is not yet public but, based on that filing, is still
Peak Resort’s Initial Public Offering. What’s Going On? Read More »
How many of you were with me in nineteen ninety whatever at the Transworld Snowboarding Industry Conference when then American Skiing Company (ASC) Chairman Les Otten stood up and thanked the snowboard industry for saving the ski resorts? Apparently we didn’t do enough- at least not for ASC. Its last ten years have been largely a process
American Skiing Sells Steamboat; Leverage and Seasonality- a Tough Combination Read More »
William of Occam was a Fourteenth century logician and Franciscan friar born in the English village of Ockham and, yes, somehow I’m going to get this back to snowboarding without claiming that he invented the first one. He’s the author of what’s become known as Occam’s Razor. It states, in its original form, “Entities should not
Resort Retention and Occam’s Razor; Keeping it simple makes a lot of sense. Read More »
Last April, I headed to Tremblant for the Canadian Ski Council’s annual symposium on the state of the Canadian resort industry. Naturally, my naïve anticipation of great snowboarding had nothing to do with my decision to go. Groomed hardpack with mud and rocks sticking through on narrow runs wasn’t what I’d expected. Thanks El Nino. At least it
News from the North; Lessons for the Snowboard Industry from Canadian Resorts Read More »