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The RFID gate entrance to the Mile 1
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PANORAMA MOUNTAIN RESORT
world, and senior sales and marketing professional, John B.
Keefe, MBA, sees this capability as one of the biggest drivers
for using the technology. “For example, a skier buys a one-day
RFID lift ticket, takes it home and registers the card on the
resort website with name, email address and credit card. The
next time they want to go skiing, they simply purchase the lift
access product through that e-platform, and it’s ready to use
at the ski hill – no need to get a new card.”
Keefe adds that with Direct-to-Lift capability, North
American ski resorts are seeing reload rates in the high 60
to 70 percent ranges. “Essentially the system is creating a
sales channel, a chance to communicate directly. And that’s
marketing gold.”
Bergen has seen a great uptake of people coming to the
WinSport Canada Olympic Park website to reload cards and
buy vouchers online, while the system is also providing valuable
data on demographics. “We can see who is coming to
our hill and when they come. This offers a lot of good information
to help us make informed business decisions, such as
what’s the best time to have lifts open, when to open more
lifts, when to close some down.”
Keeping track
“No matter how well-trained your front-line employees are,
people find ways to get around them,” said Keefe. “We have several
measures against fraud. For example, the anti-pass-back
technology can determine the average duration of a run off a
snowopsmag.com | SnowOps 43
