Resort banks on friendliness: Lodging bookings up 14 percent

Dan Graves, president of Whitefish Mountain Resort, gets a lot of good business feedback while talking to people on the lifts, with Canadian skiers especially providing important insight.

“They find our employees friendlier and more helpful than resorts up north, they love the businesses in town,” Graves said. “Everyone tells us we’re just so friendly here, it’s a great example of what a welcoming community Whitefish is.”

Graves said he believes that Whitefish Mountain Resort’s warm attitude is just part of a package that is drawing more skiers every year. This season is already shaping up to be a strong one, with lodging bookings up by 14 percent over last year.

“We’re not the easiest place to get to,” Graves said. “There has to be a reason to get here.”

The early-season snow is a good omen for the mountain. As of Friday, the resort had a 66-inch base of snow at the summit, 46 inches at midmountain and 20 inches in the village area.

Graves said these are some of the best early-season ski conditions he can remember in 20 years, even counting his years at Colorado’s Breckenridge, Keystone and Vail resorts. (He’s entering his seventh winter at Whitefish Mountain, which turns 65 this year.)

Whitefish Mountain opened for business on Dec. 8. Not pushing the opening date into November and then closing up shop with a firm date in the spring (April 8, 2013 this season) have been keys to making operations more lucrative, Graves said.

“When you try to force the opening too early, you’re always battling the weather, and the other thing is there’s not enough business to support the operations,” he said. “If you open early and stay late past the core vacation time, you’ll lose money and that’s not good for anyone.”

Graves said the resort had gone through some tough times for a number of years before he arrived. A great deal of streamlining has changed the picture dramatically, he said.

“We’ve gone from three nights of night skiing to two, closed down the Nordic center and stopped running from Thanksgiving through April. That’s put us in a consistent zone that allows us to keep a competitive advantage,” he said. “If we didn’t do all those things, the ticket and season prices would have to go up to cover those losses and it’s not worth it to skiers.”

Taking customer service seriously is also paying off, Graves said.

“Five years ago we tried to put an emphasis on guest services, and our survey results have been steadily improving,” he said. “We’re focused on improving our facilities, on guest interaction, and we work hard at maintaining a competitive advantage in value.”

Though a $67 adult day pass might seem like expensive recreation, Graves said that few people pay that full price, with discounts offered through lodging packages, cards purchased at Costco and frequent-skier cards.

Even at its quoted highest rate, however, Whitefish Mountain is among the cheaper large ski resorts, with ski areas such as California’s Northstar or Colorado’s Breckenridge selling $104 lift tickets.

British Columbia ski hill Fernie Alpine Resort costs $79.95 Canadian a day, and even Kimberley Alpine Resort, which at 1,800 acres is just over half the size of Whitefish Mountain, charges $68 Canadian for a day pass.

The favorable currency exchange for Canadians is important to Whitefish Mountain’s success — Graves said around 30 percent of its visitors are Canadian.

In another important indicator of success, the numbers on daily paid skiers — those who buy at the ticket kiosks or ski through lodging packages, as opposed to season pass holders — are looking positive this year, continuing a recent trend for the mountain.

“We track that closely, because that’s the biggest sector of our business,” Graves said. “It’s important to see that grow, and over a four-year average, we’ve grown 24 percent.

“This business is brutal — the costs are high and the weather is against you all the time. It’s all about volume, and if you don’t have the volume, you won’t stay in business.”

Graves said there are no worries that growing numbers of skiers will destroy the wide-open character of Whitefish Mountain or create intolerable lift lines any time soon.

In comparing Whitefish to Northstar in Lake Tahoe, Whitefish Mountain has about 3,000 acres with weekend or holiday visitor numbers of 6,500. Northstar has 2,200 acres and it will have 10,000 people on the mountain on a comparable day.

‘We have 50 percent more terrain and 40 percent less people,” he said of Northstar.

An even bigger contrast would be with somewhere such as Breckendridge. With close to the same acreage as Whitefish, the Colorado resort will sometimes have 17,000 skiers on a big day, Graves said.

Reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4439 or by email at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com.