Jay Peak panel love

Sharon

Sharon

New member
(I had to heist Alex's title from skivtl b/c I couldn't come up with a better one).

This looks like something Salida or Big Jay should hop on.

From Jay Peak's web site: (http://www.jaypeakresort.com/en/jay_peak/4032/)

We’ve got some big plans on the horizon and we’re looking for you, be you a long time Season Passholder or a recent day ticket purchaser to tell us what you want to see as we ready ourselves for construction of our Base Lodge extension in May. We’ll be hosting a closed forum of a cross section of 20 Jay Peakers, a few Jay Peak Managers and a moderator, to help get inside what you feel we need, what you think we can live without and what simply has to be. Those chosen to participate will receive a free 2008+09 Season Pass.

The meeting will take place Monday the 21st from 11AM to 4PM in the Alpine Room in the Hotel Jay (lunch will be served). If you’re available and would like to participate pls. email Steve Wright with some thoughts on why you should be a panelist and what, in broad strokes, you think you can bring to the table.
 
1,100 applicants so far....

Sharon":1z0rcfnb said:
(I had to heist Alex's title from skivtl b/c I couldn't come up with a better one).

This looks like something Salida or Big Jay should hop on.

From Jay Peak's web site: (http://www.jaypeakresort.com/en/jay_peak/4032/)

We’ve got some big plans on the horizon and we’re looking for you, be you a long time Season Passholder or a recent day ticket purchaser to tell us what you want to see as we ready ourselves for construction of our Base Lodge extension in May. We’ll be hosting a closed forum of a cross section of 20 Jay Peakers, a few Jay Peak Managers and a moderator, to help get inside what you feel we need, what you think we can live without and what simply has to be. Those chosen to participate will receive a free 2008+09 Season Pass.

The meeting will take place Monday the 21st from 11AM to 4PM in the Alpine Room in the Hotel Jay (lunch will be served). If you’re available and would like to participate pls. email Steve Wright with some thoughts on why you should be a panelist and what, in broad strokes, you think you can bring to the table.
Click to expand...
 
Steve,

I will just give you an online version. I have been a season passholder at Jay for the past 4 years, had a year without a pass, for 4 years before that I had a pass at Stowe and Smuggs a year before my tenure at Stowe. To start off the hundreds of days I have spent at these mountains, I will say Jay is my favorite.

Here are my subjects of interest: Service, Facilities, Terrain, Dependability and what I will call Bang for your buck.

Service:
Jay Peak lacks big time when it comes to service. I will have a negative stance to start because this particular instance is stuck in my head from XMAS week. I think it was Saturday morning after Christmas. I had arrived at the mountain a bit later in the morning, probably around 10:30. This was the time of day that I had noticed that week how busy the parking situation had gotten. I parked in the utility lot because the roadway near the triple was full. As I pulled in all traffic was being directed into the utility lot. Families were unloading their gear there, having no idea where the lodges were. The parking attendants did NOTHING to direct them where to go. I saw people carrying skis like guitars with ten sk bags haning off of them walking up the cat track to the triple. Your lot attendants were too busy talking to eachother to redirect them. I even saw one smoking a cigarette, that I thought was rediculous, do it on your break and out of sight of the customers. Sure I know that they are not the highest paid people, but come on now. There has also been some major attitude by the staff in the pizza place, you would think that you were signing for a mortgage to get a beer with your slice. Also some of the lift ops and resort operations attire looks pretty hagard. I am not asking for aspen here, but I work in a service/sales industry and how you present yourself is one of the #1 things to keep up, w/ both personel and facilities. This is also true of the ski-school, I think that I have seen some of the staff in the same jacket for years. Think of it as a Dexter Rutecki and T.J. Burke comparison.

Facilities:
As we all know the facilities have been stuck in a time warp. Your major goal of the future is to improve the buildings. Before expanding terrain, I would complete the building improvements. Level the Tram house and start over. I would get rid of the demo center, rental shop and store, use their space and consolodate them all into a skier services area. I can't say much about the hotel, but I have an idea of what it looks like inside. You have done such a great job on the look that you created with the new condos and should just follow suit of that. Start offering things such as wi-fi for the people who bring the kids and don't ski. I have never stayed in the resort, but tend to guess that besides skiing there is not much else to do. Jay is a pretty secluded place, beside IROC(20 miles away) there is not much to do around the resort. Maybe something like tubing, skating, etc.. would bring more people in. A bar/restaraunt facility is NEEDED. You could make a killing with one. You could offer entertainment, dinner, and other events, keep it open late also.

Terrain:
Of course the Big Jay disaster is going to probably effect permitting for further expansion. The talk of the West Bowl has been going on for years. I have seen your model/maps of what it would look like but I think you may have a tough time tying them all together, there is a lot of different pitches, ridges other land issues you will have to deal with. The terrain you have now is sufficient but you should improve the Bonni and Jet trip before expanding. You could increase skier counts that way. There is also a ton of area over at the Triple that could easily be transformed into more resortish terrain besides a b/c feel.

Dependability:
Personally, I feel that as the marketing department this is #1 for your team. You guys have been improving a bit with letting people know of conditions, lift ops and trail counts. Again the snow totals are still a tincy bit exagerated, but improving. Everyone knows that Jay gets the most snow in the east, so lets earn the title accurately.
I particularly do not care as much on the on-mountain terrain, but will say that Jay really needs to step it up on grooming and snow making. Some of the areas turn into death traps after 11 A.M. Vermonter, Goat, etc...
I will say it as I always have, get rid of Roemer, put Powderfreak on the payroll. Roemers is probably batting around .250

Bang for your buck:
Jay Peak is a tremendous bargain in my eyes. $6bills for a pass is worth every penny, $62/day is awesome and the fact that you guys take care of locals (vermonsters), college kids and other mountain pass holders deserves some major recognition. You really do not need to increase those prices to gain capital. I for one would spend much more time and money at the resort if there was more to do. It is only a 20 minute ride from the house and we usually go out to eat one night/trip, usually at the belfry, but if there was something up at the mountain, I would much rather give me money up there.
Stowe's new trail count is absolutely absurd, please do not do that.
$62 for 76 trails is very economical, $84 for 115 is not. Jay could really capitalize on a lot of the clientel that is getting squeezed out of the more ritzy places.

You should really concentrate your marketing on MA, CT, RI and Eastern NY. It is a 5 hour ride for me from Cape Cod, why people drive 4 hours to go to North Conway is beyond me, but you could really hit this market and convince them to drive another 45 to an hour for probably the best skiing in the east.

That is just my .95 cents.
 
Sharon":2bs9bspj said:
This looks like something Salida or Big Jay should hop on.
Click to expand...

I don't know... Gee after all, my girlfriend and I do work in that field... Working with the land, integrating your solution to the landscape and all that the environnement has to offer... After all, she's even working for Sutton on different projects! And we both grew up on mountains... And saw the changes that went on...

I grew up on Jay... been a passholder since i turned 6... Rode the Jet T-Bar when i was young... Started mountain biking there when they had a great program (and i'm still wondering why they're not going forward with new mountain biking trails on resort property!)

Hmmm.... should i apply for this... Maybe i'll write Steve an e-mail...

:wink:
 
Oh yeah, forgot, one last thing. The guys that I usually ski w/ at Jay and I were at Copper last year, while standing in line some of the marketing staff (probably interns) were asking skiers demographic and a few lifestyle questions. I was really impressed by that. A great way to get data and I did not find it to be bothersome, nothing else to do while waiting.
 
ccskier":vs8nq1ay said:
Oh yeah, forgot, one last thing. The guys that I usually ski w/ at Jay and I were at Copper last year, while standing in line some of the marketing staff (probably interns) were asking skiers demographic and a few lifestyle questions. I was really impressed by that. A great way to get data and I did not find it to be bothersome, nothing else to do while waiting.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the thoughts cc--noted and appreciated.
 
I unabashedly sent Steve an e-mail a couple days ago. I'm sure he has had a lot of great ideas and suggestions.

Porter
 
BUMP!

The forum went on yesterday (monday) in the hotel Jay. The panel was made of all sorts of Jay customers from die-hard locals to visitors from other Northern Vermont resorts and also from people on both sides of the border... so things were interesting for comparing different viewpoints.

In all the discussions went on without any major arguments and the different subject stirred the emotions of those present. We talked about everything from the different parking options, to the bathrooms and also all the way to the new expension area.

In my opinion, the only place the conversation was way out of line is when people talk about "spas" and "health centers" and "sporting facilities"... I understand those things when you talk about a major destination with thousands and thousands of visitors each week (like Tremblant and Kmart - Which to me represent the lowest form of ski resorts out there AKA. places i NEVER go to!). But when Jay has slogan like "If you're not here for the mountain, you're not here", "You are what you ski" and "Groomers are over-rated"... then you understand the skiing and riding comes first (and should stay that way!)

In all, i recognize the effort that the management team put on to organize such a unique event. Again, Jay as always been a pionneer in many areas like their website that's been online since about 1996-97 with the "Picture of the day" that would take forever to load with a 28K dial-up modem! Jay was a pionneer also when they had a mountain bike program way back in around 1992... I still have my first season's pass and would LOVE to be able to ride trails again at the resort... We could then link the trails from Jay to Montgomery... Think Kingdom Trails with ELEVATION! Wow!

Anyways... that's all my toughts for now!
 
Thanks for the report Big Jay!

As for spas...well, it couldn't hurt to have a pool/hot tub on premises. After a long day of riding the Freezer, what I miss most is my hot tub. I have to drive 330 miles back home for a hot bubbly soak. It is one of the things I enjoy after a day of skiing that is quite lacking in that area. I don't think it is off-base to request such a facility.

Also, my husband will not go to Jay anymore because it is too cold for him and there is no hot tub or sauna to get any relief. I leave him home when I go there so I don't have to listen to him complain :roll:.
 
Interesting! Hope you got a lot out of the meeting, sure sounds like it.

For what the resort needs and what would enhance it, here are my coments (if they are of interest at this point): First thing I would ask is, what profile does the resort try to have? What type of skiers do they try tro attract? From what I have seen and read, sounds like Jay Peak is trying to profile itself as the mountain for back country skiers, and skiers who are there more to ski than for the social event that often comes with skiing. Many successful companies are successful because they choose a profile, a nisch, an image and do it full out and keep to that image/nisch/profile. Without knowing to much about the ski resort industry, and what customer segment (type of skier) is profitable in the Jay Peak area I feel that the back country skiing/very dedicated skier/good skier profile would be a good profile for Jay Peak. And I think that any enhancement of the resort should be in line with this image. Here are my reasons why Jay should go for the back country/dedicated skier image:

* The snow conditions in Jay are good for it. Most snowfall in the NE means Jay really has the potential to be the best back country place in the NE.

* The mountain is big enough, vertical drop large enough and glade possibilities good enough for this profile. Not all mountains are good enough for this profile in these respects, the natural resources in Jay are!

* There are not that many resorts with this profile in VT (what about Quebeck?) and there are enough resorts for "social skiers".

So, I think there is good reson for Jay Peak to cater to back country skiers/very dedicated skiers/good skiers. And, to me, to imporve this image, I think Jay Peak should:

* Open up for more glade skiing and runs like Valhalla.
* Try to keep the more laid back atmosphere. (Not get the Stowe expensive flashy skiresort feel to it.)
* Try to think of the environment when making new improvements, try to preserve as much of the natural environment as possible.
* Not build enormous spas. (Although a smaller bath house/dry sauna wouldn't ruin it for me.) :D

Me and my skifriend are the types of skiers that belong to the back country skiers/very dedicated skiers/have a lot of experience category and live in NYC and NJ. For what we have been able to find out so far, Jay Peak is the best ski resort that is doable in a weekend for us and for our category of skiers. We are willing to add the extra 6 hours round trip to go to Jay Peak instead of Killington. But we are willing to do so only, and I stress, only, if Jay Peak has its current image and the image I am proposing. If prices went up to 80 dollars a day, big ugly spas and enormous hotells were built, you got crowds of the ladies with big furs, tights and no skis into Jay, then absolutely not would it be worth the hard drive for us. We come to Jay Peak because it is the best for our category of skiers (back country/dedicated/experienced). No matter what the improvements, make them all in line with the image you have now. Make Jay Peak even better for back country/dedicated/experienced skiers! And make sure we know Jay Peak is best for us!
 
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