There are some factors of resort management that Intrawest Corp. just can't control. Take the weather, for example. Fresh powder can't be guaranteed for skiers at British Columbia's Whistler Blackcomb any more than sunny skies can be promised to vacationers heading to the Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort in Florida.
But the company knew there were things it could get a tighter rein on, like customer relationships.
“Customers have always been important to Intrawest,” says Linda Denis, vice president of customer relationship marketing (CRM). “They do an incredible job once [guests] get to the resorts, in terms of servicing customers.” However, she adds, in other areas — like marketing communications before the guest arrived and after their visit — there was opportunity for improvement.
Kevin Koonar, Intrawest's director of database services, notes that the Vancouver, British Columbia company formed its CRM division in March 2002 as a central internal agency to work with all of the firm's 15 North American resorts. Using Lexington, MA-based Unica's Affinium solution, the company created a program to manage and track its campaigns, as well as segment and model its customer base.
The effort seems to be paying off. Like most travel-related businesses, Intrawest felt the pinch of consumers not traveling as frequently thanks to threats like a weak economy, the war and SARS. Still, the company posted 8.5% growth in revenue in fiscal 2003 and a 3.5% increase in skier visits.
“I think if we hadn't embarked on customer relationship marketing we would have been more seriously hit than we were,” notes Denis.
Intrawest's properties — the majority of which are cold weather resorts like Copper Mountain in Colorado, Mont Tremblant in Quebec and Stratton Mountain in Vermont — get over 8 million visits annually, and the company has identified about 3.5 million unique customers.
But because many visitors just came for the day and purchased a lift ticket (which doesn't require any transfer of personal information), there was a missed chance to market to many of these skiers in the future.
The company started to focus more on the customer so they could leverage this asset.
“We wanted to identify more of our customers who ski anonymously and then enhance their experience, and speak to them more relevantly,” says Denis.
The customer base for snow destinations is smaller than one might think. In North America only 2% of the population has ever skied or consider themselves skiers or snowboarders, says Koonar. Some of Intrawest's resorts are oriented toward value-seeking skiers who look for an affordable season pass close to their city so they can drive up on weekends. Other resorts, like Whistler Blackcomb, are geared to destination travelers who are willing to pay a premium for service and experience.
Each resort is set up independently and has its own general manager and director of marketing, and works autonomously from a marketing and targeting perspective, says Koonar.
“The CRM division works with each of these groups to help them change the way we target customers and start looking at things from a customer-centric rather than a product perspective, and really win them over and make them believe this is the way to go,” he notes.
Whistler Blackcomb, Copper Mountain and Mont Tremblant were the initial resorts in the CRM program. An intermediate level of services such as data capture was also offered to other resorts such as Panorama Mountain Village, Sandestin, Mountain Creek, Stratton Mountain, Snowshoe and Blue Mountain. In the past, customer records were held in one central database for all the resorts, but it wasn't used for much other than high-level profiling and some fairly basic campaigns. “Before the last fiscal year, we did fewer than 50 campaigns from a central perspective,” says Koonar. “Last year we did over 1,000, and this fiscal year coming up, it's projected we'll do 2,400.”
The company defines a campaign as any communication that goes out to a customer, whether it be a direct mail offer, telemarketing effort or e-mail blast. The CRM initiative includes templated programs that allow the resorts to speak to customers relevantly, such as sending one message to a family with children and another to singles.
Customers are split into seven segments, ranging from savvy, passionate skiers to family value-renters who ski occasionally but don't have their own equipment. There are also segments identifying best customers and various life cycles, such as existing, lapsed, new and win-back customers. Different types of creative and offers are tailored to each segment, using information collected from surveys conducted online and at the resorts, as well as third-party data.
Propensity models also are created around lodging patterns from past and current seasons to determine the best timing to offer various campaigns. Modeling is being used to cross-sell within resorts, as well as see who might like to travel from resort to resort, and provide them with an incentive. Denis notes that the company always has offered a 50% discount to season-pass holders if they wish to try another resort, but the CRM program now gives them a way to adequately alert customers of this benefit.
Each resort has a local base of customers in driving distance, as well as a destination base, adds Koonar. If snow is poor in one area, customers might get a mailing offering them a deal if they travel to another resort. This is essential, he says, given the fact that for ski resorts, the revenue for one week in winter can be equal to that of the whole summer.
About half the company's campaigns are now run online. Prior to arrival, guests receive an e-mail to confirm the hotel booking and share information about what will be going on at the resort during their stay. The guest is also soft-sold the chance to book things like high-performance skis or day care, since these services sell out quickly during busy periods.
The week before their stay, the guest receives a weather report, more specific event information and links to print out a map to the resort, should they need directions. “We try to anticipate what questions they might have,” says Denis.
The company monitors open and clickthrough rates to see what the most popular features of the e-mails happen to be. E-coupons for food and beverage are often included, and the company tracks online bookings of services like ground transportation and day care. “We're looking to improve our ability to track [these things], but we anecdotally have lots of information about people riding up on shuttle buses and seeing customers with directions and e-coupons in hand,” says Denis.
The company is testing e-mail on its own vs. e-mail/direct mail combos, to see what works best and which communications customers prefer. Annually, about 20 direct mailings are conducted per resort, ranging from season-pass holder efforts to drops promoting lodging specials.
As for e-mail, particularly zealous skiers receive daily “Snow Blasts” alerting them to snow conditions, while more average customers might get a monthly newsletter from a resort they frequent as well as occasional promotions encouraging them to purchase a season pass. E-mail addresses are held for about 20% of the customer base.
Return on investment is looked at in terms of the total marketing cost, including creative, agency costs, resort costs and central CRM costs. “From a revenue perspective, we're still looking at a fairly inferred response,” says Koonar. He notes that one way the company judges response is by date ranges: If certain product codes come in during the span of a certain mailing, the results could be attributed to that campaign. “We're trying to fill in the missing information and close the loop a bit tighter,” he notes.
While the company does send out some communications under the Intrawest name — such as privacy policy brochures that are the same for all resorts — most marketing is done under the name of the individual properties. Koonar says he's not sure if customers realize the resorts are part of a larger family of destinations, but his hunch is that that they don't.
Intrawest finds new prospects in a variety of ways, including partnerships with other brands such as America Online and Coca-Cola. Strong leads also are found at events like ski equipment shows, where a consumer can request a brochure about a particular property.
