Resort Updates/Online Products/ProBooking/Product Line Up and Details/Montage/Priority System Feedback
from Christine Baker
Hi Team,
I hope everyone is enjoying the summer season. We are having a reprieve from heat and smoke today and even saw precipitation yesterday – very welcome this time of year. Here is more information, if you’re ready for it. If not, we will have it available to you later as well.
Resort Updates
Swifty - The haul rope is here and in place, pouring tower concrete has started and installation is on track.
Snowmaking up Mr. K and in Swifty Park - Yes, you read that correctly – we will have snowmaking the full length of Mr. K and in the Swifty Park.
H2B Visas – We anticipate needing to hire a large number of new staff in the upcoming years. To help keep our team balanced with enough experience, we are also pursuing hiring international instructors. We are hopeful that we may be able to bring around ten instructors here on H2B visas (as well as quite a few team members for Lodging, and F&B). We will keep you update on if we are successful for this season.
Summer Gear Order - We may still have a summer gear order; the contract is not yet finalized with Rossignol. We will let you know if and when it is.
Madison Base – We are working on new flooring for the instructor locker room, fresh stain on the buildings, new carpeting and flooring in Headwaters Grille. A few other things are in the works as well and I’m hopeful we will have more improvements to share soon.
Products Online
Lucia and Nadia have been working diligently on winter product set up and we are happy to announce that the following products are now available for sale online:
· Tram Guides and Tram Guide with First Tracks - see new wording
Coming soon: Adult Local’s programs and SnoGo Lessons
ProBooking
Private lessons are available to be ProBooked. As you are not scheduled for specific activities at the moment you will need to ProBook via the Contact button on your home screen.
Product Line Up and Details
· Group lesson timeframes:
o All day group lessons: 9:30-3:30
o AM group lessons: 9:30-12:00
o PM group lessons: 1-3:30
o The later start and earlier end will allow guests more time to ski to and from group lessons. This will support our operations out of the Montage as well as our Madison Base and Mountain Village.
· Private lesson timeframes will remain the same.
· Small Fry Try will no longer be offered at 9am
· We will continue all day only Ski/Snowboard camp out of the Madison Base. Mini Camp will continue to have an all day and a half day option.
· MAX4 out of Madison Base lesson is being replaced with Adult Group Lessons, matching the Mountain Village
Montage
Montage is tentatively scheduled to open December 15, 2021. We will have two points of sale staffed in the Montage.
Most of our business out of the Montage will be private lessons. We will have around 15 instructor lockers for multi-day private lesson stints. We will also have instructors ski/ride over to the Montage to meet guests.
We may offer children’s level 1-4 group lessons during peak times. Other guests wanting a group lesson would ski or ride over to the Mountain Village. Lunch operations for Mini Camp children would run out of Montage’s “Paintbox” (their children’s center).
Feedback from Priority System Survey
Thank you for those who took the time to fill out the priority system email. As always, you are good at noticing avenues of improvement, as well as identifying the pieces that I know in my head, but didn’t clearly put in writing.
We will still value certification, years worked, and past performance in lesson assignments. We will prioritize that this is still a fair system and one not run by favoritism. We will rotate assignments amongst the newer to private lesson instructors to create more, not less opportunities. “Best fit” would complement the other pieces that we have always prioritized, not fully replace.
Thank you for reading!
Thanks for taking the time to read these emails in the summer. We will also create a location for them where you can reference them later. As always, please let me know if you have any thoughts, comments, or questions.
Cheers,
Christine
Christine Baker
Vice President of Mountain Sports | Big Sky Resort
(O) 406-995-5736 (C) 406-570-0983