Three keys to the ski economy: snow, snow, snow: bouncing back from a sluggish season two years ago, Colorado's ski industry is poised to take advantage of new summer opportunities, international visitors and site improvements.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff
• Position: TOURISM

In the real estate business the conventional wisdom is that there are three essential elements to success: location, location, location.

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For the ski industry--a major component of the Colorado economy--there are also three ingredients to success, and they are just as simple: snow, snow, snow.

Oh sure, there are other factors in building a sustainable and growing skiing economy, like the burgeoning development of summertime activities on the mountain terrain, the explosion of full-season and packaged passes, managing Changing demographics, marketing the world over, site improvements and transportation; and they are all issues tackled daily by ski industry professionals like the moguls on a black diamond run. But they pale in comparison to the fanfare of snow burying the Rockies.

Want proof? Twenty-nine years ago, on Oct. 15, 1984, the Denver Broncos beat the Green Bay Packers in Denver on Monday Night Football 17-14 in a slippery, sloppy game that was almost impossible to see on nationwide television because of a blizzard.

"That was a legendary event in the ski industry vocabulary," says Melanie Mills, executive director of Colorado Ski Country USA, the leading trade association for the industry in the state. "We had switchboards back then and they lit up almost immediately. We'd love it to happen again. Snow is a big part or the story here."

Colorado has "America's Best Skiing"--a phrase now trademarked by the Colorado Office or Tourism--but that image can be greatly enhanced, or substantially diminished, by snow, or lack thereof: While the number of Colorado skier visits--that is one skier/one day, the supreme industry measure--has approached 12 million annually for the last decade (roughly an average of 7 million for the 21 member resorts of Colorado Ski Country USA, and 5 million for the four Vail properties), it was off more than I million visits in the 2011/2012 season, a bad year in wintery precipitation. In fact, that year the weather was so awful that it represented the lowest total visitor count in 20 years, according to David Benne, director of consulting services for Boulder-based RRC Associates, a research consulting firm specializing in travel, tourism and skiing. The challenge for the ski industry, he says, is "snow."

"The industry in Colorado is doing well--it could be better--but with 90 percent of your revenue happening in lour months there's definitely a limitation on the business," Reline notes.

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