Europeans heading for U.S. hills

BOISE – Ian Morris usually heads for Chamonix, France, this time of year. The ski resort in Mont Blanc’s shadow is a favorite for Morris, a mid-40s resident of the island of Guernsey off the south coast of England.

This week, however, Morris is skiing at Jackson Hole near Jackson, Wyo. The strong British pound – up 20 percent against the U.S. dollar since December 2002 – is one reason he’s checking out Rocky Mountain snow for the first time. It makes his U.S. vacation much cheaper.

“Obviously the pound doesn’t hurt,” Morris said from his Jackson hotel room.

The same holds true for continental Europeans, whose euro is at a record high against the dollar. Currencies from countries including Australia and Canada have also advanced, with the dollar falling steadily on worries over U.S. trade and budget deficits.

In the process, U.S. ski areas say they’re benefiting. Resorts throughout the Rockies are expecting an uptick in visitors laden with foreign accents – and money to spend.

It’s a welcome cash infusion for an industry whose largest companies lost millions following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the Iraq war. According to the Travel Industry Association of America, international arrivals are expected to rise 7.5 percent in 2004 and another 5 percent next year, due in part to European bargain hunters.

To keep up the momentum, American ski resorts have focused their marketing on these international guests. Officials at resorts from Breckenridge, Colo., to Lake Tahoe, Calif., say they’re boosting the amount of money they spend to lure skiers from abroad.

And Killington in Vermont says it courts foreigners by participating in one of the world’s largest ski-travel conventions in London.

The reason: Even though foreign skiers account for less than a tenth of all lift tickets sold in the United States, foreigners often stay longer than their American counterparts – up to 10 days – and leave plenty of dollars at hotels, shops and malls while they’re here.

“They typically spend just as much, if not more per day, as a U.S. destination skier,” said Kelly Ladyga, a spokeswoman for Colorado-based Vail Resorts, which expects a second year of growth in international visitors that exceeds 10 percent.

That doesn’t mean all of North America is pleased with the currency development.

In 2003, international visits to ski resorts in Canada fell nearly a third as the Canadian dollar rose 20 percent against the U.S. standard. It rose another 7.5 percent in 2004.

Intrawest, the owner of British Columbia’s Whistler Mountain, has blamed sluggish visits on the currency.

“Our Canadian resorts saw a decline in U.S. visitors, driven by the rise of the Canadian dollar and the recent trend of Americans to stay at home,” Intrawest President Joe Houssian told investors recently.

Advance air bookings to Jackson, Wyo., are up 18 percent over last year, said Anna Olsen, a spokeswoman for the resort where up to 12 percent of skiers come from outside the United States.

Even in Idaho, where the relative isolation of ski areas such as Sun Valley makes them hard to reach for European visitors, tourism officials say there is anecdotal evidence of greater attention.

“Typically we have interest from European journalists,” said Ellen Gillespie, a spokeswoman for the central Idaho resort, where 4 percent of guests come from abroad. “But now we’re getting calls from tour operators who are putting people on planes.”

Killington Resort, the largest in the East, has seen a 10 percent to 12 percent rise in reservations for the winter, mostly from Britons. More skiers from Canada’s southeast are also trying out American snow.

“As the Canadian dollar moves closer to ours, we’re seeing an increase in interest among Canadians,” said David Dillon, president of the Vermont Ski Areas Association.

It couldn’t come at a better time for American ski areas.

Two of the biggest, American Skiing Co. and Vail Resorts, have lost $125 million combined in two years and are trying to lure skiers from just about anywhere to boost their finances. Skier visits in the United States over the last 25 years have stagnated, rising on average less than a percent a year.

“We’ve seen some uptick in our international travel,” said Chip Kerry, head of marketing and sales at American Skiing, where international skiers account for approximately 7 percent of visits to resorts including Steamboat in Colorado and The Canyons near Park City, Utah. “Our biggest countries are the U.K. and Germany.”

Antje Guenther, a Frankfurt-based spokeswoman for Dertour, one of Germany’s largest travel companies, said North American business is up nearly 19 percent for 2004, including skiers taking package vacations.

And since European travelers often book vacations with travel companies up to 18 months in advance, Guenther said in an interview, the rise could extend well beyond next year.

So far, European countries with vaunted ski industries such as Austria and Switzerland insist they aren’t seeing an exodus of tourists. Even with the collapse of the U.S. dollar, Austria’s tourism ministry reports a 13 percent increase in American visitors in 2004, compared to a year earlier.

And the number of American vacationers in Switzerland, whose franc has also risen to a record, is expected to increase up to 10 percent this year, national tourist board Swiss Tourism said.

“The people who are coming this winter booked long before the American dollar sunk so low,” said Sylvia Devito, a spokeswoman in Zurich.

Still, that could change if the U.S. dollar’s plunge starts to keep Americans home and as cost-conscious tourists from the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia and Canada look increasingly to North America to leverage their powerful currencies.

Case in point: Len Havard is a 64-year-old skier from Edinburgh, Scotland, a country famous for its thrift.

He spent a couple of weeks on the slopes at Copper Mountain, Breckenridge and Crested Butte in Colorado in December – and he’s spending a bit more on food and lodging with the strong pound.

Havard is planning another ski vacation in a couple of months. Like Morris from Guernsey, Havard often goes to the European Alps. But if the British pound stays strong, Havard said he’ll take another look at relatively cheap U.S. resorts.

“We might come back in March,” he said.