Q: What’s the value today of a beginner who took ski lessons four years ago?

“Where are they now?” We’ve answered a couple such questions in Stashes before, and we’re tackling another today for our ski clients. With the fences of product types removed, how many of those beginner skier/snowboarders who took lessons four years ago are still spending money at your resort today? And how much are they spending?

The Goods
To find our answer we looked at over 40,000 adults who took a beginner ski/snowboard lesson during the 2010/11 season. We then found how many of that original group showed up on the books the following winter seasons and averaged how much they spent. These averages are plotted below with people (as a percentage of the original 2010/11 group) in orange and average winter spend per retained skier in gray.

The two trends are easily spotted. First, every year more and more of the original group fail to return to the resort. For this sample, that rate starts at about 14% in 2011/12. For those that do show up on the books each year, the average spend of the remaining group slowly rises.

What This Means
Keep in mind that the increase in spend does NOT outpace the decrease in retention. In other words, the total spend of the group does in fact shrink each season.

But keep in mind that these numbers are based on one resort and don’t answer where do the other 86+% of beginners go. Do they show up at other mountains? And, perhaps more intriguing, does any of that 86% from other mountains show up at yours? Does it matter if I’m a big/small/eastern/western resort? As you might have guessed, we’ll be answering those (and many more) soon.

Next Week, Next Stash
Next week we’ll publish another resort marketing insight just like this one. Don’t want to miss it? Stick your email below.