The Stash: Olympic coverage inspires travel, but does traveler behavior change?

A few weeks ago we found that the Sochi Winter Olympics did in fact drive bookings at ski resorts. Rather that see a spike, however, we saw a flat line where it should have dipped. But did this prolonging of winter interest going into warmer months change how those inspired skiers behaved? Here’s what we’re seeing.

The Goods
To get our answer we used the same sample of 16 resorts as the last analysis. February and March were the months with the greatest gap above the average, so we looked a bit closer at lodging reservations made between Feb 1 and Mar 31 to find the volume of arrival dates for that “Same Season” (before April 31), what we’ll call the “Off Season” (May 1 – Oct 31), and the “Next Season” (after Nov 1).

While lodging bookings for the non-ski season and following season were on par with non-Olympic years, bookings for the same season were 14.6% higher than 2015 and 17.8% higher than 2013.

What This Means
Let’s recap what we know. First, it appears the Olympics keep skiing’s relevance high when, in other years, it typically trails off. Second, this effect likely stretches into the month following the games as well.

Third, the people who were inspired to act because of mainstream skiing coverage tended to do so sooner rather than later; booking vacations before the snow melted rather than waiting for the following season.

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