With the busy spring break season peaking, ski town businesses and resorts are promoting deals to try to juice business that has slipped in the recession.
The Tyrolean Lodge in Aspen is advertising rooms starting at $195 a night for this week, but its website has a line saying, “Recession Help Available! Please call.” Lodge owner Pierre Wille said one caller was quoted a rate of $150 for one night.
“It’s caused a nightmare in negotiating prices,” he said.
Occupancy at the lodge was a lofty 90 percent in January, but he’s been willing to bargain after some of the 16 rooms went unsold for Presidents Day weekend. “That hasn’t happened in 20 years,” Wille said.
Skier visits through February were down about 5.9 percent from what they were last year at 22 resorts belonging to the trade group Colorado Ski Country USA. Vail Resorts Inc., whose results weren’t included, said visits to its four Colorado resorts are holding steady overall.
Though visitors might not be spending much, specials on lift tickets, rentals, food and lodging have kept them from canceling ski trips outright.
“There’s some ridiculous deals out there,” said Todd Walton of Crested Butte Mountain Resort.
At Monarch Mountain near Salida, specials have contributed to a roughly 20 percent drop in ticket sale revenues this season, but visits are down only by single digits, said marketing director Greg Ralph.
The discounts have been important for keeping Monarch’s reputation as affordable, he said.
“In years like this, when people are making tough choices about where to spend their money, we don’t want them to drop out of the sport altogether,” Ralph said. “If a family stops skiing for a few years, there’s a good chance they may never come back.”
Crested Butte resort is offering, with certain restrictions, two more free days of lodging and lift tickets for fly-in customers who buy two lift tickets and two nights at its Elevation Hotel and Spa.
The idea is that once skiers stay in town, they might buy food and other amenities — and come back next season, Walton said.
The resort’s own lodging properties were about 60 percent full last week, he said.
