Annual Report SPEAKING VOLUMES ABOUT YOUR SKI AREA EVERY DAY! 2016-17 1 / SNOCOUNTRY ANNUAL REPORT 2016
the story of SnoCountry Fifty years ago SnoCountry was founded as a New England-based ski organization. Its purpose was to organize and encourage the production and flow of snow condition reports. As a major benefit, media everywhere wanted a single source for snow conditions for their audience. Thus, a nationwide daily promotional effort ensued by way of the aggregation, packaging and distribution of the ski report. And, the ski industry had a way to remind folks in major population hubs that there was snow on the trails, skiing was fun and exciting and by way of constant daily media exposure, helped keep skiing top-of-mind. Fast-forward to today. SnoCountry is at the fore-front of daily promotional visibility for the industry with an extensive media portfolio and daily web/radio/tv/news production. The result? A massive number of impressions SnoCountry helps add skier visits every day, every week, every year. Last year, SnoCountry considered the Ski Nation concept to add a more in-depth ski portal and community to the SnoCountry digital effort and include other industry stakeholders like retailers and manufacturers. It was soon realized that to take on a project of the magnitude of Ski Nation, SnoCountry needed to conduct a top-to-bottom assessment of its purpose, mission and goals ultimately answering the question of relevancy and value. This assessment was conducted during a Board of Directors Retreat held in October 2016. Arising from the Retreat was renewed interest and energy in SnoCountry, a review of its Bylaws, a re-drafting of its mission, a validation of its purpose and the establishment of three new committees (Governance, Membership, Future Planning). Since the Retreat, our Board and Committees have met twice monthly to review progress as we improve the organization to better serve our industry and for opportunities like Ski Nation. SnoCountry is your organization. Your participation as a member will help SnoCountry create even more quality visibility for the industry, especially now in an ever complex and crowded information marketplace. -Tom Cottrill, President SnoCountry Board of Directors Ethan Mueller Triple Peaks, Chairman Directors Phil Camp Founder/Honorary Scott Clarkson Crested Butte Mike Colbourn Stowe Greg Fisher Peak Resorts Eric Friedman Mad River Glen Dan Fuller Bristol Mountain Molly Mahar Loon Mountain, Vice-Chair Rob Megnin Killington/Pico, Secretary Staff Chet Homer Rob Chandler Shawnee Peak Member Services - East Bob Hoyt Tom Cottrill King Pine President Stephen Kircher Andrew Davis Boyne Resorts Media Partnerships Bruce McCloy Chuck Devine At-Large GM-Radio David Perry Broadcast Ops Aspen Skiing Co. Tom Horrocks Matt Sawyer Marketing Ski 2 Butternut Communications / SNOCOUNTRY ANNUAL REPORT 2016 Ben Wilcox Cranmore Mountain, Treasurer Sean Malaguti Data Processing, Business Mgr. Michael Martinez Technical Development Rebecca Schneider Traffic Manager Rob Werner Member Services - West Bill Waddell Web Developer
From SnoCountry s Chairman of the Board... A New Direction I first got involved with SnoCountry with no intention of joining the Board of Directors, or Chairing the Board, for that matter. However, as things progressed, I saw a Board and an organization that has a long history of promoting our sports, and more importantly a lot of interest in finding new ways to promote mountain resorts. My interest was sparked last spring due to an intriguing idea by Jack Turner, called Ski Nation. The idea had many moving parts, but the general idea was to create a platform for skiers and riders independent of any one entity. A platform that was truly for the end user, with no bias, that would hopefully engage and encourage more people to hit the slopes. Although Ski Nation has not launched yet, the idea and discussions have led SnoCountry in a new direction. Many of us have been in this industry for decades, and can attest to the fact that although skiing and riding are the foundation of our business, everything around that foundation has changed, and will continue to do so. SnoCountry recognizes that fact as well, and has been working hard to find new ways to support all of us as resort operators, but more importantly ways to reach and engage our customers. Similar to Ski Nation, the basis for these changes is to be an independent platform that promotes all mountain resorts. I ve been lucky enough to spend the majority of my life involved in this sport and business. I have a great deal of passion around what our industry does as a whole, and feel a certain level of responsibility to do what I can to promote skiing and riding throughout the country. As leaders in our industry, I can only assume many of you feel the same way. With that, I encourage you to take a few minutes to learn about SnoCountry from the staff, or your colleagues that sit on the Board. Although there is still a lot to do within the organization, I believe you will see many ideas, backed by a passion that can only do good things to grow our industry. - Ethan Mueller, Chairman Triple Peaks What Drives US... With a fresh update of our mission, we tirelessly worked to deliver your snow information to a vast array of media and consumers all to help keep skiing top-of- mind. Our Mission: SnoCountry is the leading source of current, credible and unbiased ski and mountain resort information to promote the experience. Our Goal: Each day, we seek to activate, educate and motivate people to enjoy ski area sports and mountain resorts. Our Ownership: SnoCountry is a not-for- profit member-owned organization; currently 160 ski areas and growing. 3 / SNOCOUNTRY ANNUAL REPORT 2016 Established October 25, 1968.
BALANCE sheet The staff at SnoCountry continues to improve operational efficiencies, grow membership and to expand use and delivery of your information. Our revenue is largely from ski areas and is used to promote skiing and riding. Expenses result from the aggregation and distribution of snow condition reports and by developing maximum media exposure for ski areas. Estimated for 30-April-2017 Current Fiscal Year Ends 30-April-2017) Assets 30-Apr-17 30-Apr-16 Current Assets $632,868 $545,691 Accounts Receivable $67,608 $200,849 Net Property and Equipment $52,621 $74,536 Total Assets $753,097 $821,076 Liabilities and Net Assets Current Liabilities $250,024 $252,643 Accounts Payable $28,097 $26,259 Deferred Taxes $6,954 $11,052 Net Assets $468,022 $530,852 Current Liabilities $753,097 $821,076 Our balance sheet shows an estimate for the year-end. A noticeable difference from last year to this year results from the one-time Ski Nation feasiblity study money that SnoCountry agreed to facilitate for the Ski Nation Advisory Group. 4 / SNOCOUNTRY ANNUAL REPORT 2016
Data Collection & Distribution This is the CORE of SnoCountry! We collected more than 800 daily reports for snow conditions, events, activities, deals and weather from every resort in North America. Many ski areas update their snow conditions several times each day especially with new snowfall. Be sure your staff is dialed in because SnoCountry distributes thousands of reports daily to DID YOU KNOW! SnoCountry provides snow conditions data to thousands of media affiliates - many of which receive reports multiple times a day, including Google, which pings the SnoCountry database every 8 seconds! How many impressions? We can t count that high but with partners like Google and Amazon Alexa, the numbers are impressive! SnoCountry is the snow report provider to the Amazon Alexa! Plus, SnoCountry will be a part of the Microsoft Cortana too! 5 / SNOCOUNTRY ANNUAL REPORT 2016
Radio: SnoCountry Mountain Reports The SnoCountry Mountain Reports Radio Network included 500+ stations across North America for the 2016-17 season and provided the following exposure for the mountain resort industry: Resort Participation: ~ 200 resorts were featured across the network Weekly Radio Reports: 6,000+ 2016-17 Reports: 110,000+ Daily Listener Impressions: 2.8 million Weekly Listener Impressions: 15.4 million 2016-17 Season Impressions: 240 million Participating Radio Stations and Networks included Television SnoCountry Snapshot Hosted by Halley O Brien, the SnapShot broadcast 17 weeks in 35 metropolitan markets from Denver, to Philly, New York to Boston to Montreal. Weekly Viewer Reach: 48,362,900 Weekly Impressions: 500,765 Seasonal Impressions: 7,884,200 6 / SNOCOUNTRY ANNUAL REPORT 2016
Digital: SnoCountry.com Visits: 1.1 million Page Views: 3.15 million SnoNews enewsletter Subscribers: 110,000 2016-17 Newsletters sent: 2.5 million Mobile Total App downloads: 2.21 million Average Monthly Users: 21,250 Average Monthly Page Views: 512,250 Average Monthly Downloads: 1,500 Custom eblasts Subscribers: 115,000 2016-17 eblasts sent: 3 million 7 / SNOCOUNTRY ANNUAL REPORT 2016
SnoCountry Re-Invigorated From the Membership Committee Chair: It s a real privilege to be able to work, live and play in this industry this is something that all of us share. There are also shared responsibilities that go along with being in this great industry. One of those shared responsibilities is, in my opinion, to work together on areas that make sense to collaborate. SnoCountry was founded on this principle and it still rings true today - working together to assemble and disseminate the critical information that our customers need to stay engaged in our sports. With this in mind, the Board of SnoCountry has become newly invigorated and is re- organizing its activities to be even more effective going forward. In order to be truly effective, we need broad and engaged membership by as many of the ski resorts in the country as possible. With strong membership comes scale and scale enables the organization to serve all members more efficiently and effectively. Bruce McCloy and Mike Colbourn, I can say that we have a very engaged committee, fully committed Board and an excellent staff, that has emerged since the Board retreat last October. We are planning a fully equitable National membership plan that will evolve over the next three years, but is focused on adding members from all the regions of the country in order to re-balance the membership from its New England roots. The value equation that will convince more resorts to join and participate is very clear and compelling. When you hear more in the coming weeks and months regarding membership and what we can do better together, I m sure you will be impressed. The future of SnoCountry is in good hands right now if you are already a loyal member, please reach out and advocate for other resorts to join. If you are not currently a member, the staff and Board members are available to share the reasons why it makes perfect sense to be a part of the team. As Chair of the newly formed Membership Committee along with Matt Sawyer, Bob Hoyt, - David Perry, Aspen Skiing Company SnoCountry, Inc. PO Box 505, Lebanon, NH 03766 T: 603.443.8808