Date :
26/03/2014
KNOW WHAT RESORTS HAVE TO OFFER
Sharing your invaluable knowledge of what activities, facilities and services are on offer with prospective customers is so easy. Have links to resort websites from yours and have information available where your customers can see it. Make sure you’re au fait with information on kit hire, lessons and upcoming events as well as snow conditions. Publicise all of the resorts, not just the nearest one. If your guests have driven a long way, the chances are they’d be willing to drive to other ski resorts if there is promise of a good day on the hill an hour or two away.
If your visitors arrive early, e.g. the night before, they can often beat the queues and gain an extra hour on the slopes while others who’ve driven up on the day are queuing.
AVOIDING THE BUSY PERIODS
Find out when the busy periods are, for instance English school holidays. The Easter break is the busiest week for Scottish ski areas, so you could find out if their school holidays coincide.
Mid-week trips to the resorts can be bliss with the chance of good weather and no queues so encourage visitors to avoid weekends if they can; consider offering cheaper weekday deals.
BIG EVENTS
If there are events going on in the future you could encourage a return visit. For instance, if you know they’re snowboarders, would they be interested in a freestyle competition in a few weeks? Could you offer a returning visitor a discounted rate or money off voucher for using your services again?
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
Often other businesses, for instance outdoor stores, have lots of local knowledge. Staff are keen to help and share their knowledge. The chances are staff spend most of their spare time in the hills so they’ve seen the slopes first hand.
WEATHER AND CONDITIONS
Weather can make or break a trip to the hills so make sure visitors are well informed. All the Scottish resorts have constant updates on conditions, which you can find on their websites and Facebook pages. Ski patrollers go out first thing in the morning to assess the weather, quality of the snow on and off piste, safety and lift access.
Weather forecasting services
Mountain weather is unpredictable. Luckily there are some great services providing more accurate mountain weather forecasts like the Mountain Weather Information Service as well as ski areas own reports from the hills. They release their report for the next day at 4pm and sometimes update in the morning if things have changed. Switched-on tourism businesses have the latest report printed out and pinned up where visitors will see it. Add a link to it on your website.
Web cameras
When it comes to knowing if there are rocks poking through the piste or a white-out at the top, web cams will speak volumes. All the resorts have live web cam pictures on their websites.
Traffic Scotland web cameras are set up on most of the major roads including all the way along the A9, so be sure to tell your visitors to check before they set off.
Road closures
Visitors can be caught out by road closures so check that they know where to get current information. Recommend Traffic Scotland which has constant updates on road conditions.
Twitter and Facebook
In remote places, Twitter really does come into its own because it doesn’t rely on 3G internet access. Traffic Scotland has an excellent Twitter feed, which you can access just about anywhere. Perfect for en route. Recommend to your customers they check it out instead of getting stuck in a three mile queue at the snow gates. Find out what the hash tags are e.g. #snowgates or #A82. And you’ll find that people in the queue will update it. Almost all of the ski areas have Twitter and Facebook pages too.
PRE AND POST SKI FACILITIES
For accommodation providers there are some quick wins you can make by thinking about what your visitors will need at either end of the day.
You could consider…
offering an early bird breakfast, even if it’s just leaving cereal, tea and toast-making facilities out for guests to help themselves.
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making sure you offer drying facilities and adequate boot storage. There’s nothing worse than putting on damp gear the next morning, so make sure the heating is firing at the right times of day.
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having adequate storage facilities and secure places for visitors to store their skis.
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once guests have checked out, providing lockers to store a bag during the day to collect later if they don’t come by car.
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offering a cappuccino and cake to your guests for that wow factor when they get back from a hard day on the hill.
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getting the log fire burning if you have one. That’s a big selling point.
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promoting local physiotherapy and massage businesses and sports centres with saunas.
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If you run a café, could you adjust your opening hours to offer coffee and a home baked cake later in the day to catch the last stragglers off the hill, or open early in the morning to offer porridge to skiers and boarders?
Once you put yourself in your visitors’ boots and talk to them about what is most useful, the possibilities are endless and many of these suggestions are not hard to put into practice.
FURTHER READING
Glencoe
Cairngorm
Glenshee Ski and snowboard
Lecht
Nevis Range
Traffic Scotland
Mountain Weather Information Service