It's been a great ride thus far with some of the best snow conditions we have seen at Mt Hotham in quite some years.
Trends in the mountains are changing and one of the biggest challenges Australian resorts have is balancing visitation to ensure equitable access.
What does this mean?
Well, if you have made a trip up this season you would have seen the massive increase in day visitation.
A 'snow experience' is probably the best way to describe a majority of our day visitors' mission to our resorts.
On some days we do see more day visitors than the traditional ski/board market.
As we all know, our resorts have finite resources and capacities so balancing this out with traditional markets of ski/board along with day snowplay/sightseeing can sometimes get to a point where we do get full and resorts implement a restriction on 'day visitors passes purchased on the day'.
Why? Well, on the other side of the coin we have people who have invested significant funds on season passes, overnight accommodation, booked at restaurants or possibly an on-snow activity that absolutely need to be catered for.
Hotham is a little more trickier to manage re: capacity, as we have a through road and our village is well spread out on the Great Alpine Road.
So a fair percentage of people are travelling through to the likes of Dinner Plain and also well beyond to the coast.
Capacity management has to allow for this scenario.
Resorts are investing into resourcing and infrastructure to improve the day visitor market.
The new Hotham Hub at Wire Plain is one such project, funded by the Victorian and federal governments.
As an industry we need to work together to progressively encourage and make it easier for our day visitors to experience and access more of the resort in an informed, safe way.
First timer lessons, bundled as an accessible, easy, cost effective option is an absolute must moving forward so we can maintain a healthy balance with growth potential at our resorts in Australia.
It's a doable thing and will improve everyone's experience at our resorts.
Till next month - cheers from us up here at Hotham!
