Independent US ski resorts get tech overhaul to futureproof their business

Data and tech are helping ski resorts operate more efficiently. A New Hampshire mountain destination is using technology to analyze everything from how many ski runs its customers complete to the busiest time for selling hot dogs. The Black Mountain resort is owned by businessman Erik Mogensen. He calls it a “quintessential independent mountain.” But behind the scenes, the experience is now propelled by a high-tech system designed to increase efficiency at the state’s oldest ski area. The company builds systems that put lift tickets sales, lesson reservations and equipment rentals online, while collecting detailed data to inform decisions like where to make more snow and how much. “When you don't have data to fall back on and you don't have a marketing plan to fall back on, you're just kind of, like, hoping that it snows one day. And hoping that it snows is not a business plan,” he says. So, his team crunches the numbers to monitor exactly what his customers are doing so they can adjust staffing and resources accordingly. “A lot of general managers will go out and look how many rows of cars are parked and that's kind of how they tell how busy they are. We really want to look at transactional data, down to the deepest level. When are people buying hot dogs and hamburgers, right? How do we staff the cafeteria and at what time?” he says. The entrepreneur is betting that technology will be a great "equalizer” with the larger players. “Vail and Alterra and the large operators, they can do a lot of things at scale that we can't. They can buy 20 snow cats at a time, ten chairlifts. Those type of things. We can't do that. But we're really nimble here at Black. We can decide to change the way we groom very quickly or change the way we open trails,” he says. This article was provided by The Associated Press.