Mammoth’s Uphill Effort : Resort Hopes New Air Service Will Help It Regain Lost Skiers

When the first United Express plane touched down at the local airport here last month, it ushered in what area executives and officials see as a new era for this Eastern Sierra ski resort town.

The new air service, by allowing direct connections with giant United Airlines, marks the first time Mammoth Lakes and the adjoining Mammoth Mountain ski area have ever been easily accessible by air from cities throughout the world. Such access is badly needed to help the area regain skiers lost to other resorts throughout the West in recent years, officials say.

“We’re 10 years behind other resorts in terms of air service,” said Gordon Alper, a former mayor of Mammoth Lakes and current Town Council member. “Because they have moved aggressively in that area, other resorts are absolutely eating our lunch.”

Mammoth Mountain for decades relied almost entirely on skiers from Southern California driving up U.S. 395 to reach the area’s slopes, condos, shops and restaurants.

But the ski business has changed.

For more than a decade, the total number of skiers in the nation has failed to grow. Resorts are competing more and more aggressively for a larger share of the flat market.

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Meanwhile, increasing job and family demands in the 1990s are forcing skiers to make quicker trips. Vacationers are less willing to drive--and more willing to fly--to ski destinations.

Aware of these trends, ski areas nationwide--and especially in Colorado, Utah and Lake Tahoe--have been using low-cost fly-and-ski packages to aggressively skim Mammoth’s traditional Southern California market while also luring skiers from other population centers, such as the San Francisco Bay Area and Dallas-Ft. Worth.

To counter the increased competition in what they consider their own back yard, Mammoth Mountain and Mammoth Lakes have been working together on new marketing strategies. The town recently arranged to buy the local airport from Mono County so it could make improvements that would help attract new regional air carriers.

The ski area had already been working with Alpha Air, a small carrier that has been serving the area since the early 1980s, to market fly-ski packages. But the initiation of service from United Express on a trial basis Dec. 19 opened Mammoth to a broader number of travelers.

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Passengers flying on United Airlines can now book through to Mammoth on United Express without having to recheck luggage and buy an extra ticket. Alpha also recently began offering similar links with other airlines, but United Airlines has considerable marketing clout, and its connections with travel agents are far better than Alpha’s.

“The plan was to acquire the airport, make improvements there, and then aggressively solicit regional air carriers to service our area, thereby connecting Mammoth with the whole world really for the first time ever,” former Mayor Alper said.

For many western resorts, direct air service has long been a key part of doing business, and some ski areas far from major population centers could not survive without it. But it has become even more important in the 1990s, forcing Mammoth--a relatively short six-hour drive from Los Angeles--to improve its air service to compete.

“These days, both parents have to work to make ends meet, and that means that when they take vacations, time is of the essence,” said Seth Masia, West Coast editor for Ski magazine. “Instead of taking two weeks off, three- and four-day vacations are a lot more common, and far fewer people are willing to spend part of that time driving to a ski area.”

A number of resorts have been engaging in a tug of war over skiers, particularly Southern California’s.

The Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority, trying to capitalize on their own recently expanded direct air service, terminated some service personnel to free up resources for increased ski-package advertising in Southern California.

A spokesman for Park City Ski Area in Utah said it has recently stepped up its Southern California radio advertising of fly-ski packages to take advantage of new low fares by Delta Air Lines.

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The Southern California market is coveted both because of its huge size and attractive demographics.

“Southern California is seen as a great untapped market,” Masia said. “It’s known as the home of the younger, 20s-to-30s crowd who are very sports-oriented but are yet not committed to the sport of skiing. So it is seen as still a potential growth market, as opposed to other regions where everyone has already tried skiing and they’re either already committed skiers or else they’re not going to be.”

To help bolster its marketing, Mammoth Lakes a year and a half ago hired Ralph McMullen as director of the Mammoth Lakes Visitors Bureau. He was hired in part because of his experience in helping to improve air service at Jackson Hole, Wyo., when he headed the Chamber of Commerce there in the 1970s.

In Wyoming, and later when he promoted the Sun Valley ski resort in Idaho, McMullen said, he specifically went after the Southern California market.

“For 11 years, my whole job was to take business away from Mammoth Mountain Ski Area,” McMullen said. “So now I’ve been hired to try to bring back some of that market that we took away.”

As part of that effort, four four-star hotels are in the planning stages for the town, which has lacked such luxury facilities in the past.

Mammoth Mountain has begun new marketing efforts in Fresno, United Express’ hub city, and is also in the middle of a major marketing effort in Great Britain and other foreign countries where skier numbers are growing.

Where They Ski in the West

A sampling of top western ski resorts and their popularity as measured by total number of skier days (one skier spending four days is equal to four skier days) during the 1991-92 season.

Figures are not available from all ski areas, and drought conditions affected skier numbers in California and some other states.

1. Vail, Colo.: 1,540,018

2. Aspen, Colo.: 1,444,245

3. Breckenridge, Colo.: 1,023,323

4. Steamboat, Colo.: 1,005,922

5. Mammoth Mountain: 904,277

6. Copper Mountain, Colo.: 810,493

7. Heavenly, Calif.: 722,000*

8. Alta, Utah: 524,276

9. Beaver Creek, Colo.: 445,802

10. Snowbird, Utah: 373,836

11. Sun Valley, Ida.: 360,100

12. Jackson Hole, Wyo.: 230,843

13. Grand Targhee, Wyo.: 134,535

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Source: U.S. Forest Service