Trends in Ski Industry, New Hampshire

About data

• The data used in the analysis below are obtained from a sample of major ski areas in the state.
• The data covers from 2000/2001 to 2017/2018 with missing values in 2010/2011 and 2013/2014.
• The data includes nine Alpine ski areas and six Nordic ski areas.
  • Alpine: Bretton Wood, Cranmore, Dartmouth, Gunstock, Loon, Pats Peak, Ragged, Sunapee, and Waterville
  • Nordic: Bretton Wood, Eastman, Gunstock, Jackson, Loon, and Waterville
• Non-ski activities such tubing were not included. This is omitted due to its quality of data as well as it not being one of primary activities.
• The summer visitors’ data came from seven ski areas: Cranmore, Gunstock, Loon, Pats Peak, Ragged, Sunapee, and Waterville.
• Data are reported in aggregates to keep individual ski areas’ data confidential.

Check number of missing values

The table below shows number of missing values by ski areas and by activity type.

• All Alpine ski areas have two missing values over two seasons: 2010/2011 and 2013/2014. Eastman and Jackson are Nordic only ski areas and, thus, no missing values.
• All Nordic ski areas have two missing values over two seasons: 2010/2011 and 2013/2014. For Alpine only ski areas, zeroes were entered instead of missing values.
• Only seven ski areas that have the minimum number of 2 missing values were used to identify the summer visitor trends in New Hampshire.
• Some ski areas have no record at all for some activities over all 18 seasons in the data. For example, Dartmouth has no record at all for non-ski activities such as tubing; Eastman and Jackson have no record for summer visitors. In such cases, it was determined that the ski areas do not offer such services. So zero was entered into the data instead of NA.

## # A tibble: 4 x 12
## # Groups: Type [4]
##   Type   Bret~ Cran~ Dart~ East~ Guns~ Jack~  Loon Pats~ Ragg~ Suna~ Wate~
##   <fctr> <int> <int> <int> <int> <int> <int> <int> <int> <int> <int> <int>
## 1 alpine     2     2     2     0     2     0     2     2     2     2     2
## 2 nonSki     4     2     0    16     2    15     2     2     4     6     8
## 3 nordic     2     0     0     2     2     2     2     0     0     0     2
## 4 summer     9     2     8     0     2     0     2     2     2     2     2

Overall trend

• The New Hampshire ski industry saw an overall downward trend in its visitation since the 2000/2001 season.
• All nine ski areas in the data set were included in the chart below.
• Non-ski activities, such as tubing, were not included.
• There is no data for two seasons: 2010/2011 and 2013/2014.

Trend in Winter Visitation

• The winter visitation shows a steeper decline.
• Year-over-year fluctuations are also noticeable, reflecting the industry’s vulnerability to the whimsical nature of the winter weather.
• Excluded are non-ski visitors and summer visitors.

Trend in Summer Visitation

• The summer visitation shows a growth since the 2004/2015 season. The pace of growth picked up the steam after the 2009/2010 season, likely because of increased investment in summer activities.
• Only seven ski areas that have less than three missing values are included in the analysis. Excluded are Eastman, Jackson, Bretton Wood and Dartmouth.

Contribution of Summer Visitors

• Despite the increased summer visitation in recent years, the share of summer visitation is still below 20% in total in most years. The ski areas’ fortune still largely depends on how they perform in winter.
• When viewed as the percent in total visitors, however, the upward trend in summer visitation is more obvious. The share of summer visitors in total has been on the rise since the 2000/2001 season.
• Excluded are Eastman, Jackson, Bretton Wood and Dartmouth.

What did we learn

• The overall visitation has been falling in New Hampshire’s ski areas.
• The summer visitation has been on the rise both in number and in percent in total and, thus, helped ski areas absorb some of the losses in winter visitation.
• However, summer visitation is not yet large enough to change the course in the overall visitation.
• Increasing investment in summer activities appears inevitable as winter visitation largely depends on the amount of snow fall and the climate change that are out of ski areas’ control.
• When studying possible impacts of the growing share of summer visitors on ski areas, it’s important to examine how numbers in visitation would translate into dollars. Some summer activies are less expensive than winter sports: for example, hiking versus skiing.