Over the last few days I’ve been looking at quite a few websites run by ski resorts and I was struck by how little use of social media there is by ski resorts. There are a few resorts such as Kitzbühel that have a Facebook presence, but I couldn’t find any that use Twitter. I then had a look at Matt Parson’s travel industry on twitter list and there are none on there.
I know it’s quite an easy shot to criticise travel companies for their use of social media, but I can understand why some travel firms aren’t using Twitter. However, if ever there was a perfect fit for Twitter it would be ski resorts. Most skiers are fairly nerdy and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more skiers using Twitter than your average travel demographic.
The obvious uses for Twitter would be to keep people informed of snow conditions, access to resort, avalanche risk, weather forecasts and lifts that are open and answering general queries. But there are so many other possible uses ranging from promoting events to organising scavenger hunts and resorts could promote their Twitter feeds on screens at lift stations.
So is it just that we’re out of season and resorts will start using Twitter in the winter? It seems unlikely. I contacted several resorts to ask if they had any plans on using Twitter and below is a standard response:
We advise that it is not foreseen for the upcoming winter season, please visit our website for information on our resort and in the case that we then will activate it.
It’s a shame that ski resorts are not using Twitter because it seems like such a logical thing for them to do. The problem probably stems from the fact that most resort marketing and communication is coordinated by the local tourist office and although they are generally efficiently run, they’re not known for their innovation.
If there are any ski resorts using Twitter, please let me know.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Good article. I think the last six words says it all… another point is that ski resorts (especially tourism offices) ‘lose’ people once they’re in-resort. As you say, Tweets at lifts is one idea, but since Twitterers are de facto technology users, Tweeting useful info to mobile devices (like lift/event/snow updates) would be a good strategy for TOs to keep communicating with customers?
I agree with your sentiments, but I think if you look a bit harder you’ll find that a few resorts are dabbling in Twitter.
Try:
@lesarcs
@serrechevalier
@cransmontana (mostly in French)
@latania3valleys (bizarrely, updates are protected)
@ZellKaprun (in German)
@StAnton_Arlberg (also in German)
@laplagne (no Tweets yet)
…and that’s just a few in Europe. Try searching in the States and Canada, where resorts are much more switched onto social media. For example:
@WhistlerBlckcmb (more than 5,000 followers)
Hi Mark
Thanks for highlighting the paucity of my research
I only posted the Twitter comment on the back of looking at a fairly large number of websites. In the piece about the sites I did mention it was only about the European ones, I know the US is a completely different story. I wasn’t looking at the sites specifically looking for links to Twitter, but it was noticeable that I didn’t see any.
I did have a look at quite a number of sites across Europe. I didn’t look at Serre Che, Crans or La Tania. I did look at Les Arcs, La Plagne, Zell and St. Anton and a mention of their Twitter feeds may be on there, but I certainly couldn’t find them. I guess I was wrong to assume that if a resort used Twitter, there would at least be some sort of mention of it on their main site.
I do think though that if a resort such as St. Anton will only do a feed in German, it’s not much use to to the many thousands of English-speaking visitors they have each year.
Simon, I put together a list of Ski Resorts on Twitter (just N America for now) last winter and have been updating it ever since, take a look at: http://www.ericinparkcity.com/article/ski-resorts-on-twitter/
Hi Guys,
It’s actually not that bad according to this Twitterlist:
http://twitter.com/myslopes/skiresorts
So far more than 200 Official Twitter Accounts by Ski Resorts accross the globe!
Thanks for your comment. It depends on where you’re looking, in Australia about 100% of resorts are using Twitter. In North America it’s probably about 90%, yet in Europe it’s a different story. In Austria it’s just about 10% with only one doing anything in English. France, Italy and Switzerland aren’t much better.