Ski Hills Launch New Marketing Campaign

A $1,000 “corporate gold pass” will gain admittance to any of Eastern Washington and North Idaho’s five ski resorts this year.

Mount Spokane, 49 Degrees North, Silver Mountain, Schweitzer Mountain Resort and Lookout Pass have joined forces to market themselves collectively to the region’s skiers and snowboarders.

The first action of the Inland Northwest Ski Association is selling 25 corporate gold passes which offer free run of the mountains, stretching from Chewelah, Wash., to the Montana-Idaho border.

The pass is available only to businesses. Though it is transferrable to different people within the business, only one person can use it at a time.

All money earned will advance group marketing efforts.

“That’s a great deal because our corporate pass (just for Silver) is $940,” said David Kilmer, spokesman for Silver Mountain.

John Eminger, owner of the 49 Degrees North ski resort, has been named president of the marketing association.

“This is a homespun group. This is the retailers and the ski areas getting together,” Eminger said. “This is a real opportunity for Spokane and Coeur d’Alene to start getting some national recognition. You could come to Spokane and ski five different areas and have a real nice experience.”

One focus of the marketing effort will be to attract more young skiers. As skiing is viewed as a lifelong sport, the best time to beef up the ranks is by appealing to grade school kids, members of the association said.

“Any money we raise should be used to develop the fifth grade market,” said Kirk Duncan, new general manager of Mount Spokane.

“It’s going to benefit not only the ski areas but the ski retailers as well,” said Peter Gillis, the new general manager of Schweitzer. “It’s very similar to many other ski industry regional associations.”

Though specific programs aside from the corporate gold pass have not been finalized, Eminger said the association will look for corporate sponsorships of events and will try to form partnerships with retail outlets to offer discounts on skiing and equipment rental.

“It’s only together you can do these things,” Eminger said. “If you stand alone, you can’t do it.”

, DataTimes