The big news from Utah’s ski resorts this week is the release of total skiers visits to the Beehive State. The 2015/16 ski and snowboard season racked up a total of 4,457,575 skier days. That breaks all previous records for the state. According to SkiUtah, this season was up nearly 5-percent from the previous record of 4,249,190 during the 2007-08 season. Even bigger, is that this year’s skier numbers represent a 10.4 percent increase versus Utah’s 5-year average of 4,037,349.
“This was a big year for Utah’s wintersports industry and we could not have asked for a better result,” says Ski Utah President Nathan Rafferty. “Credit can evenly be distributed to the collaboration of Utah’s 14 resorts, the tremendous support from the Utah Office of Tourism and the private investment in resort infrastructure.”
Much of this increase can probably be attributed to Vail’s purchase of Park City Mountain Resort and the combining of PCMR with Canyons Resort, creating the largest ski resort in the United States. In addition, Vail pumped over $50 million in improvements including new lifts and restaurants. Snowbird’s upgrades, like the new restaurant atop Hidden Peak, likely factored in the tourism increase as well. Statewide, resort capitol development totaled over $100-million, and almost half of Utah resorts reported record-breaking visits.
Of course, it didn’t hurt that Utah finally broke through that terrible drought that has plagued us the past few years, with an average amount of snowfall and plenty of powder days to draw in out-of-staters.
Utah isn’t the only state seeing an increase in skiers. Nationally, visits were up from 53.6 million to 53.9 million, a 0.5 percent increase from the previous season. According to NSAA’s Kottke Survey, the Rocky Mountain Region tallied a record-setting season with an overall 8 percent increase in skier visits this season over last. Utah alone was up 13 percent over last season.
Below is a breakdown of Utah skier visits by year for the last 10 years:
- 2015/16: 4,457,575 visits. #1
- 2014/15: 3,946,762 visits. #9
- 2013/14: 4,148,573 visits. #4
- 2012/13: 4,018,812 visits. #7
- 2011/12: 3,825,090 visits. #10
- 2010/11: 4,247,510 visits. #3
- 2009/10: 4,070,822 visits. #6
- 2008/09: 3,972,984 visits. #8
- 2007/08: 4,249,190 visits. #2
- 2006/07: 4,082,094 visits. #5
For more, visit SkiUtah.com