Vail Deals a Blow, Takes a Hit

Vail Resorts pulls out of Colorado Ski Country USA and loses 2013 World Championship bid

Shock waves hit Colorado, the ski industry and specifically the Colorado ski industry when Vail Resorts Inc. announced that it would not renew its membership in Colorado Ski Country USA, the marketing, promotional and lobbying organization that in 2007-08 counted 26 member ski areas. With the the withdrawal of VRI and its four Colorado resorts (Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone and Breckenridge, each counted separately on the membership roster), there will be 22. CSCUSA , a not-for-profit organization, will have a fiscal challenge to make up for the loss of VRI's contributions to the budget. CSCUSA was established in February 1963, ironically the same year that Vail opened for skiing. What a way for both to "celebrate" their respective 45th anniversaries.

“We had hoped to be a catalyst for positive change, but unfortunately, a number of the other members did not agree with our vision, and we were unable to resolve these differences,” said Robert Katz, CEO of Vail Resorts, was quoted in a much reported and not really convincing press release in the way of explanation of VRI's departure.

For its part, CSCUSA must still be reeling, because the media/news section of its website still does not mention withdrawal of one of its biggest, most powerful members, though very subtly the four VRI resort names have been removed from member list at the bottom of the website. This is not the first shocker Katz gave Colorado skiing. Shortly after he took the helm at VRI, he moved the corporate headquarters from the mountains to an office park in suburban Broomfield. Culture shock indeed.

CSCUSA's annual meeting, which will take place June 11-13, will be a doozy. Not only will the organization have to deal with the ramafications of VRI's departure, but a replacement needs to be named for Rob Perlman, Ski Country president, who resigned to join Intrawest, owner of Copper Mountain, Winter Park and Steamboat and also resorts outside of Colorado.

In what might be considered international comeuppance for Vail, the International Ski Federation (known by its French initials, FIS) denied Vail/Beacer Creek's bid to host the 2013 World Alpine Ski Championships, a biennial men's and women's competition that its previously hosted in 1989 and 1999. Schladming, Austria, was selected not only over Vail/Beaver Creek but also over Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. All four are Alpine skiing powerhouses that previously hosted World Championships and/or Olympic Winter Games.

When it comes to resort positioning, hosting a major ski event is not to be trivialized in the international skiing world. When the extremely snowy '89 World Championships in Vail and Beaver Creek were telecast in snow-hungry Europe, European ski snobs took a new interest on skiing in North America. My favorite story involved an enterprising German who managed to find the home phone number of George Gillett, then the owner of the Vail resorts, to book a ski vacation. World Championship and even World Cup media exposure has, in the pastm, been good for international business to Vail and Beaver in particular, to Colorado in general and to the Rockies even more generally. If the euro continues its strength against the dollar, American resorts will maintain their lure for European skiers. Too bad that Vail won't benefit from that exposure four seasons from now.