Looking for a smart, weird solution

It’s not just the weird weather that’s been “interesting” this season. In fact, if it isn’t going to dump 8 to 10 inches every other night with a few three-foot drops, and consistently sunny days it may as well be downright balmy at 9,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains. And it has been.
But the weather has been so weird that on one day last week the Extreme Competition was cancelled due to lack of snow. Of course it started dumping the next day, which resulted in the Super Tour being postponed last weekend because of too much snow. It’s tough to win during a winter like that.

Now, lean snowfall no doubt kept some people away from Crested Butte this season. A lean air program seems to have contributed as well. As fewer people fly here, the local seat guarantee costs rise and it is harder to keep the numbers of planes flying in. That sort of ratchet combo isn’t pretty and its impacts may last beyond the rest of this season—again.
I have heard CBMR’s general manager Ethan Mueller use the term “right size the resort” several times in the past few weeks. Citing two “real world examples” he told members of the RTA that he laid off a couple of full-time, year-round employees last week. “The volume wasn’t there,” said the businessman.
In that vein, the resort has let every employee know they will be taking a two-week unpaid vacation after the ski season. For locals counting on a regular paycheck to pay their mortgage or buy groceries, that is a big, ugly hit. Unfortunately, the hits may keep coming and that sort of cutback is happening across the valley and the country. Employees of this paper took a bigger ding than that a couple of years ago and it still hurts. Waitrons are getting fewer shifts and serving half the number of tables. Shovelers are clearing fewer roofs this year and drivers are hauling fewer people up from the airport—but we are still working in Paradise.
Mueller summed it up that CBMR won’t be the only business in the valley having to “right size” if skier days and snowfall totals continue to drop. If fewer and fewer airplanes fly in, that seems to be the probable direction. It ain’t pretty. And I can see no easy answer.
 
So the conundrum is how to get more people here. The reality is, tourists get here either by plane or by car. Planes bring in more people faster and usually those people spend more money. We want more people coming into the Gunnison Airport. It doesn’t have to be a ton more but the number of people getting off a plane in Gunnison has dropped by more than half from 1993 to 2011. It’s gone from about 68,000 deplanements to about 32,000. Ouch. How do you refill some of those seats?
Some argue that if more planes came in and offered more opportunities for convenient travel, more people would choose to fly in. Some certainly would. But that’s quickly becoming an outlandishly expensive business model and the airlines have said point blank they don’t have faith that we can fill their seats.
The other argument is to make the product so different and attractive that people will do what they must to get here. The airline seats would then fill up, the airlines would then make buckets of money without local guarantees and more flights would come on line. Everyone would again discover a comfort zone. The restaurants would fill up, the ski school would have a waiting list and everyone could go have a margarita on the beach in Mexico in the spring instead of camping in Moab.

So what’s the answer? I’ve been pondering it for weeks and haven’t figured one out. I lean more toward the “create more demand” template. Bring back the Crested Butte fun. I know pointing fingers won’t solve the problem, so forget the blame game. I’ve had a few product improvement ideas. But how do we create a big picture future with some light? Now, hopefully someone smarter than me (and that’s a large demographic) will come up with the bright idea of how to turn it around. Let us know what you come up with. Hopefully it will be something interestingly weird, like the weather.
In the meantime, the phone forecast calls for some late-week snow followed by sunny days in the 40s. Perfect. And being it is spring break, there should be a few people around to boot.