14 May Beyond Snow and Gravity: Building Successful Ski Mountain Brands.
By BravoEcho
It’s the end of another season. The mountains return to green, adventures become memories, and thoughts turn to warmer weather. But for those running ski mountains, thoughts quickly turn to planning next season. Our ski industry experience spans 20 years, and we’ve lived this cycle with Aspen, Beaver Creek, Big Sky, Snowshoe, Vail, and Winter Park among others, helping each carve its own distinctive brand in a competitive marketplace.
Despite early data indicating that the 2024-25 season had the second-highest visitation levels recorded at U.S. ski areas 1, we still see challenges ahead. Ski participation as a share of U.S. population has been flat to down since the 1990s 2. Participants remain overwhelmingly White and are increasingly older, more affluent, and more male 3. Price increases give all skiers pause, while the focus on multi-resort and season passes combined with single-day price hikes further raise costs for first-timers and casual skiers, stymying attempts at diversification. Finally, unpredictable snowfall due to climate change threatens the industry’s stability.
While a strong brand will not answer every challenge, a differentiated experience, marketed distinctively, leveraging strong consumer insights can go a long way to counter these headwinds.
Here are nine foundational questions we recommend ski mountain leaders consider to build brand equity, drive growth, and increase revenue.
1. Is your brand both clearly defined and differentiated?
Every mountain has a combination of place, people and spirit that makes it special – a uniquely physical human experience in nature. You know it when you feel it, but that feeling needs to be captured, distilled, and expressed in a way the entire organization can champion and that resonates with both current and future visitors.
2. How can you maximize the entire brand experience?
A multitude of elements create the overall experience, beginning before a purchase is even made and continuing after people return home. Intentionally designing ownable brand moments on the slopes, at the base, and across digital and physical touchpoints can personalize and heighten the experience, surprise and delight, and offer sharable content. These moments create and cement memories, and ultimately increase the emotional value offered.
3. Do you really know your most loyal skiers and snowboarders?
Deep understanding can unlock incremental revenue through innovative product and service offerings. There may be skills they’d like to master or terrain they’d like to explore that can be monetized through the Ski & Ride School. They might have food and beverage preferences, and mountain habits and rituals you can tap into. And, as new skiers and riders are motivated by someone showing them the ropes, 4. knowing how to motivate this group to bring newbies to the slopes can be invaluable.
4. Can you attract new visitors by tapping into broader trends?
The number of casual outdoor consumers continues to grow 5. driven by what Accenture calls “Social Rewilding” – replacing digital social interactions with being present outdoors and in nature with other people 6. People want to counter the togetherness deficit they feel as we spend more time alone 7. Gen Z and non-family Millennials are increasingly looking to “Tribe Travel” with friends for the IRL connection and community they crave 8. And there is growth in outdoor recreation among younger Hispanics and African-Americans that can be directed to snowsports 9. Each of these trends presents an opportunity to bring new people to your mountain.
5. Can you truly become a year-round mountain?
As snowfall becomes less reliable, and winter revenue less stable, the importance of non-winter revenue increases. Few ski resorts stand out for their summer offering despite the industry’s long-standing desire to crack the code. A clear long-term vision for summer is required, with strategies and investment beyond repurposing existing infrastructure and assets. Competing with beaches and national parks requires mountains to innovate to build an immersive experience that delivers the brand promise as powerfully in summer as the slopes do in winter.
6. Is your messaging fit for the long game?
The pressure for early season sales momentum can result in well-intentioned plans for brand-building marketing being jettisoned for sales-driving tactics and a focus on short-term ROA. This can lead to fragmented, off-brand messaging and inconsistent tonality. There is a balance between bookings and building brand equity, and short term tactics won’t get you the latter.
7. Are you developing creative assets efficiently?
We see necessary evolution in the creative process and its outputs to deliver an effective mix of marketing materials.
• Collaborative co-creation between agency and in-house teams to ensure a seamless connection between agency-led big, sticky brand ideas and agile in-house executions.
• A toolkit of creative elements ensuring a consistent brand story across touchpoints with the flexibility to deliver always-fresh content at speed.
• A dynamic mix of highly-controlled ‘advertising’ and raw, authentic user- and influencer-generated ‘content’ that works best in social feeds.
8. Are you leveraging your employees and fans to build community?
Your best employees embody your brand’s spirit. Your fans are your most passionate supporters. These groups are your brand champions, and, with tools and support, you can unlock a whole new, and highly-trusted, marketing and community-building channel.
9. How does environmental sustainability fit into your brand and marketing?
71% of winter sports enthusiasts believe it’s important that snowsports brands take a stance on climate change 10. While the word “sustainability” might be politically divisive, those who spend time in the mountains want to know the nature they love is being well looked after. Green messaging has been shown to build brand equity because it fosters trust 11. So, talking about recycling, clean energy, and land stewardship in appropriate touchpoints can boost sentiment.
Fresh Powder and First Tracks
Every mountain has its own soul – something that makes its fresh powder and first tracks special, and its community one-of-a-kind. As our clients plan for next season, and the seasons after that, these questions have proven powerful – they help codify and then communicate the experience, strengthening the brand and making it fit to compete. A strong brand may not move mountains, but it will excite people enough to move up and down them.
You can see our ski industry work, here.
1. https://mailchi.mp/nsaa/2025-may-skier-visits-media↩2. NSAA: Kottke End Of Season & Guest Experience Report, 2023-244↩
3. SIA, Participation Study, 2023-24↩
4. SIA, The next Generation of Winter Participants, 2021↩
5. OIA, Outdoor Participation Trends Report, 2024↩
6. Accenture Song, Life Trends 2025↩
7. The Atlantic: The Anti-Social Century https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/02/american-loneliness-personality-politics/681091/↩
8.Ibis & Globetrender, Go Get It: How Gen Z/Y Will Travel in 2025↩
9. OIA, Outdoor Participation Trends Report, 2024↩
10. SIA, Consumer Insights, 2022↩
11. Ipsos, The Power Of The ESG x Brand Collaboration, 2024↩