Heavenly exec shares thoughts on industry's future

LAKE TAHOE - From his beginnings as a ski patroller at Vermont's Sugarbush ski resort to a recent promotion that places him in the upper echelons of the Vail Corporation, Heavenly Chief Operating Officer Blaise Carrig has been involved in just about every aspect of the ski resort business.

The ski company executive has split time between Lake Tahoe's South Shore and Vail Corporation's Broomfield, Colo., headquarters since being promoted to co-president of the company's Mountain Division in January 2008.

Under the arrangement, Carrig oversaw Breckenridge and Keystone resorts, while remaining Heavenly Mountain Resort's COO.

But, under a corporate restructuring announced in April, Carrig will relinquish the title he's held since Vail bought Heavenly in 2002. A new general manager is expected to be hired from within Vail this summer.

Carrig plans to move himself, his wife, Leslie, two horses and four goats to Colorado this summer as part of the restructuring. He said he expects to return to the South Shore for work about once a month.

The Carson Valley resident sat down with the Nevada Appeal's sister publication, The Tahoe Daily Tribune on Tuesday to talk about his future, as well as the future of skiing at the South Shore.

Tahoe Daily Tribune: What do you see as the major challenges facing the ski industry in the next five years? The next 30 years?

Carrig: "I'm actually an optimist about the ski business. I think that it's in good shape and this year is a great example where we still have a pretty tough economy and we have pretty high unemployment in the country and yet skiing as a whole, the industry, had its second best year ever, which, I think, speaks to the health of skiing. I think people who ski and snowboard understand that passion and when you think about our business in that sense, we have a sport that still really resonates with people...

"There are macro issues like the economy as a whole that will continue to effect our business, but when you look at what happened last year it kind of seems like snow trumps the economy in some respects. And then I think we have competition from a lot of other areas, whether it's cruise lines and Disney or even video games, and I think it's a challenge for our society to make sure that youth stay engaged with physical activity. I think skiing and snowboarding are just great avenues for that."

Tribune: How crucial is it for the ski industry to attract new participants to remain financially viable and how will Vail do that at the South Shore specifically?

Carrig: "Well I think, as I mentioned before, that's one of the key challenges for the industry. I think that the sport, in itself, is inherently attractive and so people are going to come into the sport. I think the key is making it so when they come into it, that it really works for them and they decide they are going to stay with it, which most people do.

"I think at the South Shore, we're working with a lot of different programs. What Vail is looking at is a couple of other different things, like diversity. As our population is becoming more diverse can we be attractive to a larger, diverse population? And I think that is really true for Heavenly. In California, you've really got a lot of ethnic diversity in the population and how do we attract that into snowsports? We've found one way we see that happening is through things like entry snowsports like tubing. We built the tubing hill and we found that that is incredibly popular and that's a great way to introduce winter sports to a group of people who may not ordinarily see themselves as winter sports enthusiasts. They try that and it's fun and then they're kind of like 'what's the next thing' and then you give them a chance to try snowboarding and skiing..."

Tribune: How do you think ever-increasing lift ticket prices are going to effect the ski industry, especially when it comes to attracting and retaining new participants?

Carrig: "I actually think that the lift ticket price is somewhat irrelevant because I think that people who come up to the lift ticket window, where the highest price is, they never ask 'how much is a lift ticket?' they say 'give me a lift ticket.' So, if they've gotten that far, where that's where they're buying their ticket, they've kind of missed a lot of opportunities to get a really good deal. The focus on the lift ticket price is a little off-centered. The people that are doing that don't really seem to care about that. What you do have in the industry and particularly with our company is a lot of other opportunities to ski at a very affordable price, but I think what we're asking for is the commitment. A season's pass is incredible, the season's pass is still $339. I think when we came here it was $800 to $1,000. We have a Peaks Program where people can, it's not a pass, but it's a way to buy tickets online where you're basically getting in our database and you can either buy tickets online where you get the best discount or you can even buy tickets at the window at a discount by being a Peaks member... I think people are getting much more savvy about that, particularly because of online use by skiers, so I don't think the ticket window price really is a barrier to the growth of the sport.

"I really think the sport is affordable. And the person whose going to the ticket window - lets say it's a $90 lift ticket, hypothetically, for a whole day of skiing and all the capital and infrastructure that comes with that - it's still cheaper than a round of golf at most places."