The pandemic bounce that New Hampshire ski areas saw in 2020-21 didn’t hold over this past winter, when erratic weather combined with staffing problems that limited some operations sent ticket sales tumbling almost 4%.
Overall visits to New Hampshire ski areas remain below pre-pandemic levels, according to data from Ski New Hampshire, although year-to-year comparisons are complicated by COVID-19.
“The 2019/20 season ended a couple weeks to at least a month early for the ski areas due to the pandemic, which drove numbers down. I think that would have been an otherwise average year,” wrote Jessyca Keeler, president of Ski NH. “We saw a big uptick in 2020-21 despite COVID precautions (such as limited ticket sales, boot up at the car measures, etc.), which in part had to do with people working remotely, coming up midweek or moving to their second homes in NH, and being desperate for something fun to do during the winter months.”
Then came last winter.
“This past year the season got off to a slower-than-usual start by a week or two, due primarily to warm early (temperatures) that were not conducive to consistent snowmaking, but this year we saw a lot more warm weather events,” she wrote.
Both alpine and snowtubing sales fell sharply, the latter by 7%, but cross-country sales were up by 4% from the year before. Ski NH does not track the small but growing business of backcountry skiers, who skin up the mountain rather than riding the lift. Many resorts now sell cheap day tickets for them.
The long-term picture shows some changes in the industry. The 10-year average of alpine visits, for example, is 2.07 million, which is about 70,000 more visits than seen this season, while this season’s cross-country or Nordic visits were a full 10% below the decade average of 127,000. Despite this year’s dip, tubing is actually above the 10-year average of 107,000 visits, which reflects how that aspect of the business has grown.
“There was a lot of demand, which was evidenced by record season pass sales, but Mother Nature just didn’t deliver consistently this past winter,” Keeler wrote.
Expecting consistent winter weather has always been tricky – Keeler noted that 2014-15 was a near-record year and 2015-16 was a snow-drought disaster – and climate change is just making it worse.
