Destination Marketing Podcast Episode 19: Lane Tucker
Lane Tucker: It's hard for a DMO because the county needs to be fair with everybody, but you also need to lean on your largest assets. So, spreading that stuff out proportionately is something that sometimes goes unnoticed because everyone's trying to be fair to everybody, but that's not always the most correct way to do the promoting. Adam Stoker: 00:24 Welcome again, everyone, to the Destination Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Stoker. We're glad to have you back. I'm also excited we have a great guest today. It's going to be a little bit different show than we've had in the past because instead of having a destination or a technology that serves destinations, we actually have a business that is reliant upon a destination and that fits very importantly into the destination. And it's a ski resort. And I've got Lane Tucker with me. And Lane, you are the general manager of Eagle Point Resort in Southern Utah. Is that correct? Lane Tucker: 01:01 Yeah, I'm technically the Operations Manager, so I handle anything dealing with our marketing, our guests, our cashflow, everything that way. Adam Stoker: Great. Operations Manager. You're in charge of a lot of things, so I'm excited to chat with you about that today. We're excited to have you on. Lane Tucker: Thank you. Glad to be here. Adam Stoker: Great. Well there's a couple of questions that we ask at the beginning of every show with every guest just to make sure that we kind of get the conversation flowing a little bit. And so, for you, I also want to ask you the question, what is your dream destination? If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be? Lane Tucker: 01:40 Anywhere in the world? I would actually love to go back somewhere I've been, so I'd love to go back to Bulgaria and ski there again. I skied in Bulgaria with my father in 2007 at Bansko Ski Resort and at a really small ski resort outside of the capital called Vitosha. And that was a great experience even though the snow wasn't the best. So, I'd love to go back there on a really good snow year. Adam Stoker: Okay. We haven't gotten Bulgaria yet, that's a really unique destination. Tell me a little bit more about why it was such a special experience for you. Lane Tucker: 02:21 Well, I lived there for a few years before. Didn't ever have a chance to ski, brought my dad back with me and we went back and did a little tour of the country. But our main goal was to ski. Bansko is one of their largest resorts out there and it was amazing to see the European style of skiing, but without being in the Alps. You're completely surrounded by a million different people. You still have a lot of people from around Europe. So, there are a lot of languages. It was really fun. The cultural experience was neat. Having lived there, I spoke the language, so there was a connection and I was able to get some inside, you know, the hometown scoop of where to ski from the locals, since I could speak the language it helped out a lot. Adam Stoker: 03:16 Nice. Okay, so you've been skiing your whole life, then? Lane Tucker: Yeah. I started at eight and all my siblings started at like three. But being the oldest there was a disadvantage and my parents were not in the right capability to start me that young. Adam Stoker: Gotcha. Yeah, it's funny, I'm the oldest as well and it's like my little brother lives a completely different life than I ever did. It's like he doesn't even have the same parents. Lane Tucker: Yeah, yep. It's how it goes. Adam Stoker: Yeah. But I guess there's drawbacks to being spoiled as well. Lane Tucker: Yeah. Adam Stoker: Nice. Okay, so you would go back to Bulgaria if you could. Would it be a ski trip entirely? Would you do the tourism side of it too? Or are you thinking, "Man, I'd go back, and I would just hit the slopes for a week." Lane Tucker: 04:13 I would probably go back and hit the slopes for a majority of it. But the cool thing about going to a ski resort is you ski during the day and then you've got a lot of touristy stuff to do in the evening. So, I loved going and hitting up the restaurants and seeing what we could still see. I can't really ski for a full week every single day without getting too beat. I wish I could again, but I just can't do that anymore. So, I would try to get some of touristy things going. I like the history. So, I would love to go see some of the old monasteries, and some of the historical things that they've got throughout the country. Because that stuff was really cool. When I was living there before I was able to see some of that. Adam Stoker: 05:10 Awesome. And you mentioned that you would go try different restaurants and stuff. What kind of food do they serve in Bulgaria? I have no idea. Lane Tucker: 05:19 It's a lot of potato-based foods. One of my favorite, basic meals is something called a moussaka and it's a flour and egg, meat and potatoes casserole with some unique spices. That's something I would love to get again. And they've got a special cheese called Sirene and that is one that I still really miss because it's like a feta but stronger and a little better. It's just got a little different taste to it. Adam Stoker: 05:57 All right. Bulgarian food. There you go, everybody. You didn't expect to learn about Bulgarian food on today's podcast. Lane Tucker: 06:03 Yeah. Adam Stoker: 06:05 All right, Lane, tell me a little bit about your background and how you ended up at Eagle Point Resort. Lane Tucker: 06:10 Okay, so I was a ski instructor my senior year of high school. I was living in Richfield, Utah, which is another central Utah town and I worked at Elk Meadows at the time, which is the previous name for Eagle Point. I left there, went off to college. I was going to college at Weber State University my first year and ended up teaching skiing at Brighton. I ended up being at Brighton for eight or nine seasons, and then in 2010, a friend of mine, who I worked with at Elk Meadows, was speaking with my dad and said, "Hey, they're still looking for management people down at Eagle Point." And we're like, "The what?" And so we talked to them. They said, "Oh yeah, they're revitalizing the old Elk Meadows, they're bringing it together and you should apply. They're looking for a Rental Shop Manager." I had also been working in rental shops and tuning shops while I was a ski instructor. So, I came down, applied in September, was hired the end of September and started working for the resort as the Rental Shop Manager in October of 2010. That was our first season. Then, that following year I had a lift ride with the owner, Shane Gadbaw. He commented that he was going to be looking at making some management rearrangements and would like to put me as the Operations Manager and move the current Operations Manager to a Mountain Manager. That's how I got into this role and I've been here, we're going on, this will be our 10th season. So, I've been the Operations Manager for nine of those seasons. Adam Stoker: 08:14 Wow. You know, when you got that new role that's around the time that you and I met I think was. I think it was fairly soon after you became the Operations Manager, is that right? Lane Tucker: Yeah, yeah. I remember we met down at the park in Beaver towards the end of that summer to talk marketing. Adam Stoker: That's right. That's right. Well, it's been a long time. I think, you know, I was fairly new in my career at that point and you were fairly early in your role and it's kind of fun to see how our roles and experiences have grown and evolved since that time. Lane Tucker: Yeah, it has been such a wonderful experience being at the resort, going from one stage to the next and year after year and our capability grow and see what we still have potential to still do. Adam Stoker: 09:06 Yeah. Well, tell me a little bit about Eagle Point Resort. What makes it unique? I know that it was originally called Elk Meadows. I can't remember exactly what the details were between when Elk Meadows went away and Eagle Point came to be. So maybe a brief refresher on that, but then what makes Eagle Point unique and what do you love about it? Lane Tucker: 09:27 Okay, so a brief history. It originally started, and I can't remember the exact years, my apologies, but in the mid to early '70s seventies as Mount Holly and it was just the section of the mountain that we refer to as the Tushar side, because it's the Tushar Ridge, and that's where the steeps are. Right now, that's where our hoodoos and Delano Drop and our, as I always consider, our more fun skiing. Then, in the early '80s, Elk Meadow started as a separate ski resort above the other resort, geographically above on the highway. So, there's two separate resorts. Then, merged in the mid to late '80s as Elk Meadows. That went until 2002 and then it was shut down. Then, they tried to privatize it between 2002 and 2010. That didn't work out. The resort went on the chopping block, Shane and some partners were able to pick up the resort in 2009, and then in 2010 we opened. So, December 15th of 2010. And what makes it amazing and unique is what we've been able to do with it. It's a small-town resort feel. We have a lot of hospitality with it and we try to keep that. So even though we're getting guests from California, Nevada, Utah, or we're bringing people all in to come to our destination, it's still a hometown feel. We still want you to feel like you walked into the country store, and we're happy to have you there. And then the other unique thing is our operating schedule and how we run and maintain overhead. So, we run from Friday through Monday, so it's a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday for the majority of our season. That helps us keep low overhead costs and keep the resort running. Adam Stoker: 11:42 Now, that's pretty unique, isn't it? There's not a lot of ski resorts that are four-day operations, right? Lane Tucker: 11:47 No, there's not a ton of them. There are a few, but they're all have some uniqueness as to why they do it and that schedule has worked great for us and it gives us the opportunity to do our other really unique thing where you can rent the mountain for private events Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Adam Stoker: 12:10 Oh wow. I didn't realize that you guys could do that. That's great. Lane Tucker: 12:14 Yeah, so you can come in as a corporation or as a private party and be like, "All right, we're going to come in and we're going to rent the resort and we're going to add food to it." We've got lodging available. We can cover anything you want to do; we can make work. Adam Stoker: 12:31 Are you allowed to say what corporations or organizations or give us an example of what type of organizations have done that? Lane Tucker: 12:39 Yeah, so we've done probably the largest overtaking, I guess we would call it, would be Love Your Melon. They're a wonderful company. They do a lot of funding, of research with kids with cancer and they were a wonderful group to bring in. They have brought in 150 college students from across the country to come in and ski. They have brought in concerts. They have brought in custom meal ideas and custom pretty much anything. I mean, we had Big & Rich performed in our lodge for that group. It was an amazing event for Beaver, just to have all of them come up and participate in all of that. They got to ski with just their group, you know, the whole mountain was open to them and then they were able to also do conference work. So, they had their fundraising partners come in and do presentations. Kids that benefited from their efforts were able to come in and talk to them and share their stories. Families were able to come in and share their stories. So, that was probably the largest one that we've had. It was amazing. I mean, we went so far as bringing in a petting zoo. They wanted something unique and we're like, "All right, let's do it." We had horseback riding and a petting zoo in the middle of winter, it was great. Other groups we've had, we had a doctor's office. It's a private doctor's practice that comes up every year out of Las Vegas and they bring a lot of their employees as an incentive for sales and productivity. We've done private birthday parties for people. We've done it for weddings. People will rent it out in the middle of winter for a wedding and they get married and then they all go ski and then they have their party and reception. We've done quite a bit there. We have anything you can really dream of, we can make it a possibility and of course, you know, cost is factored into that. But if you really want it, we can make it work. Adam Stoker: That's amazing. I mean, there can't be that many ski resorts that allow you to rent out the entire resort. Lane Tucker: I don't know of any. Adam Stoker: That's a pretty unique selling point. Very cool. What an interesting way to take advantage of an abbreviated operating schedule and instead of just being, you know, shut down for those days, you actually turn it into a profit center. I think that's a pretty unique use of that time. Lane Tucker: 15:33 Yeah and it's been wonderful for us. The times we're able to do that, it's definitely a boost in our revenue and the only thing that people don't like is it slightly affects our powder on Fridays. You know, you get a Wednesday storm and somebody has already skied it on Thursday. The people coming up to ski our powder on Fridays are like, "Oh man, it's already been skied." Adam Stoker: Yeah. Then it's like, well you're welcome to rent it out on a powder day if you like. Lane Tucker: Yeah, that’s exactly it. We've had some groups, we've had some ski clubs be like, "How much leeway do we need if we see a good storm coming in on Tuesday night, can we just call you up and rent it?" And we're like, "Ah, that would be great. But staffing wise, but if you can plan it a little bit better that than that, then yeah we can do something." Adam Stoker: 16:23 Man. Well, that's really cool. I wasn't aware of that development with you guys, that you've created the opportunity to rent out the resort. I think that's a great thing that makes Eagle Point unique. As far as my experience at Eagle Point, I think what makes it unique to me is that you guys have, so there's two resorts in Southern Utah, there's a resort in Vegas and there's a couple of resorts in Southern California, and you guys have some of the more expert terrain in that group of resorts. Is that fair to say? Lane Tucker: Yeah, that's a great way to put it. Adam Stoker: So I think, you know, the thing that has stood out to me with Eagle Point is that if you want the Salt Lake City or Park City ski experience, but you don't want to fight the crowds and you still want expert terrain, Eagle Point is the place to go, at least as far as I see it. Lane Tucker: 17:21 Yeah. And you can get as much vertical skiing at Eagle Point as you can at some of the larger resorts up in Salt Lake. Just for the fact that you're not waiting in a 20-minute lift line, you're not waiting two hours to get up the canyon and you can just keep making laps. With some of the other resorts, you make a lap and then you stand in line, then you make a lap and then you stand in line. We actually have people coming in to rest, you know, it's like, "Man, I just did like eight laps and it's been two hours, so I need to take a break." Adam Stoker: That's a completely different ski experience. Lane Tucker: Yeah. Adam Stoker: 18:05 Great. Well, you know, most of our listeners are destinations and a lot of the destinations that listen to our podcast have a ski resort within the destination. So, one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on, not only because you're a unique ski resort, but also because I know you guys have to work fairly closely with your destination, which is Beaver County, Utah. I'd love to hear a little bit about how you guys work together. What I'm really trying to do is educate the destinations that listen to us on what does an attraction, like a ski resort, need from the destination to be successful? Lane Tucker: 18:45 So a perfect example, I'm in meetings right now and the County has brought me in on boards to help with our marketing plan, our 10-year plan that we're working on right now. Like how do we make this destination a better destination? Being part of that on the resort side has been great. We're looking to help get people to our doors, but we don't have everything that people want. What can we do through town to get people up here in an organized way? What can we do to get people up here at the resort who want to be here and who are willing to come back in other seasons? I mean, because we're not just a ski resort. We've got mountain biking, we've got this. So how do we make that work with what's available throughout the County? That's what we're working on right now. That's a step that the County is taking. I’ve got to give a shout out to Michelle Evans. She is the Tourism Director down here in Beaver County and she has been pushing for these things to try to get us all together and onboard so that not only is the ski resort as an attraction bringing people to the County, but also what else can we do to help bring people to the resort through the county and vice versa. What can the County provide that the resort may not have available? Adam Stoker: 20:23 I might just rapid fire a couple of questions for you about the dynamic between you and the DMO or the destination. And maybe just give me a quick answer to each one as we go through. First of all, you mentioned you guys are having meetings about how the destination can better support getting people in an organized way up the canyon. Do they help with transit in any way? You know, city buses or something like that, taking people up to the resort? Lane Tucker: Not currently. Beaver is a small enough County in an area that there is no public transportation unless you count borrowing your neighbor's car or horse. But they don't. Mainly what they're doing there is we're working on wayfinding so that it's easy to navigate. Adam Stoker: That was my next question. So, they are providing or working on providing wayfinding signs to help people get up to the resort and not get lost in the middle of town? Lane Tucker: Yeah. Adam Stoker: 21:23 Awesome. What about, do you guys have any funding programs where the County is actually, because in some cases it makes just as much sense for you, the ski resort, to run the advertising and be supported by the destination as opposed to the destination running advertising that features you but as kind of promoting the destination. Right? So, how do you guys work in that dynamic? Lane Tucker: Are you talking about grant money? Adam Stoker: Yeah. Do you get any grant money from them or do you guys partner and put your money together to run a campaign or how do you work together with funds specifically? Lane Tucker: 22:05 Okay. Yeah, so we, we use a Utah Office of Tourism Grant that the County will match and then as a partnership, the County and Eagle Point go to the state in order to get funds. Those funds are used. A part of that, those funds, are used for out-of-state advertising. We do a lot of our own, but we also partner with the County. So, when the County has ad space purchased, they will come to us and say, for example, "We have radio ads available, do you have events coming up? When would you like us to donate that portion of our ad service to Eagle Point and what can we do for that?" Adam Stoker: Okay. So they will kind of put together the media plan and they'll come to you and say, "Hey, you can have this ad that's a component of the media plan or you can have this two-week flight on radio," or that type of thing. Lane Tucker: Yeah. Adam Stoker: 23:05 Okay. Very cool. What challenges should DMOs be aware of as they're trying to support a ski resort? Like what do you wish they understood and maybe not even, you know, maybe your DMO is doing a great job with it, but in general, what do you think destinations need to understand better to support a ski resort within their destination? Lane Tucker: Oh, that's a hard one. Because like I said, I think Michelle is doing a wonderful job. It's hard for a DMO because the county needs to be fair with everybody, but you also need to lean on your largest assets. So, spreading that stuff out proportionately is something that sometimes goes unnoticed, because everyone's trying to be fair to everybody. But that's not always the most correct way to do the promoting. Adam Stoker: 23:58 I think you bring up an interesting point there specifically, because I know a lot of destinations struggle with this as they'll have a big attraction, whether it's a ski resort or a national park or a state park or whatever, right? There's such an inordinate or inequitable amount of traffic coming to one area and yet every stakeholder wants a piece of the pie as far as the destination’s budget goes. So, that is a difficult thing for them to navigate. My philosophy on that is that all boats kind of rise in the tide, right? So, if you're able to get your main attraction more traffic, then other attractions within the County will rise, you can't ski 24 hours a day, you just can't do it, right? Lane Tucker: Yeah. Adam Stoker: So, other attractions will get an increase in traffic just based on the additional traffic that comes to the main attraction. At least that's my theory on it. Lane Tucker: 24:58 No, and we see that. I mean, take a gas station for example, we've got gas stations on our North and South interchanges. When the resort was shut down, Main Street was not getting traveled as much by out of town visitors, and gas stations prices were only good out there. Now there's a rise in gas prices and everything. When we have a bad year, it goes down and trickles down to everybody else. So, I totally agree. You can see the numbers rise as the tide rises, all boats float higher. Adam Stoker: Great. What about working with other businesses within your destination? You obviously have to kind of play nice with the other businesses in the county. And I'm sure that probably is easy for you in most cases, but what other cooperative efforts do you have with businesses in the area? Lane Tucker: One thing that we've done is we've made our season pass; we've gone to local businesses to try to get people to visit them and they offer discounts for our season pass holders. Adam Stoker: Oh, that's great. Lane Tucker: 26:16 So yeah, the Beaver Chevron and the Dairy Queen on the South interchange are partners. If you go in and show your season pass, you get a discount on your gas and you get a discount at the Dairy Queen. So that's just one example. We've got others throughout town such as SodaFix, and I'm trying to think of any off the top of my head, my head's going blank right now. Adam Stoker: A question I have is to get those going, was that just legwork? Did you just have to go down and see everybody, visit with them, engage with them and ask them to get involved and be a partner? Or was that by email? What was your process for that? Lane Tucker: 26:59 I am a face-to-face person so I went down and met with each one of them and said, "Hey, this is what we're thinking. We want to support you because we know that you're supporting us by sending business this way too, what can we do?" So, we just came to some agreements on that and that seemed to work the best for everybody. Adam Stoker: Makes sense. I like the face-to-face aspect of it. I think when they actually see that you want to come in and have a relationship and be a partner, I think that goes a long way. It’s cool that you guys are putting that together. Have you gotten good feedback on those programs from your season pass holders? Lane Tucker: Not any numerical data. It's good. People are like, "Oh, cool. I can use this here; I can use that there." But I don't have the numbers to back exactly what's happening. Adam Stoker: 27:50 Yeah. So as opposed to having like a specific ROI number or anything like that. It's more along the lines of giving that season pass holder peace of mind and a better customer experience. Right? Lane Tucker: Yeah. And it's just people feel happy when they're like, "Oh, okay, I get a little bit more." It's more bang for your buck. Adam Stoker: Yeah. Makes sense. Tell me a little bit about how you, at Eagle Point, measure your success. Obviously, ski numbers is one thing, but as a whole, how are you guys measuring how you're performing? Lane Tucker: 28:25 Ski numbers is giant for us. Then, we look at revenue. We've had years where our market has changed and we see with that market change that our ski numbers may be a little bit lower than the previous year, but our revenue is up. So, it helps us tune into finding where our marketing money needs to be spent because that's what it comes down to. We want to promote an uncrowded resort, but we want to make revenue. Adam Stoker: Yeah, it's an interesting balance, right? It's like we want the experience to say the same, but we obviously need to make more money as we go. Right? Lane Tucker: Yeah. So, by finding those market niches where we can say, "Okay, this family from this area is spending more, what can we do to entice them for returns? And what can we do to entice them to bring their friends in the same demographic?" Adam Stoker: Okay. So how is Eagle Point doing? Are you guys trending up year over year? Are you growing? Are you just maintaining? What's happening with Eagle Point right now? Lane Tucker: 29:36 We're trending up right now. We've been putting things together; we're trending up to the point where our focus right now has been some developments in the area to increase heads in beds. You know, we need more beds so we can get more of the destination visitor who's going to come and spend, you know, a day and a night or a couple nights and a couple of days skiing. So, we have been pushing our limits on our lodging availability. We've been working on development for more lodging. Adam Stoker: Great. And is Eagle Point going to actually own the lodging or are you working with lodging partners? Lane Tucker: 30:19 We're working with lodging partners. Mainly, Aspen Equity has been developing an area up at the resort called the Aspen Crest that we're putting in new twin homes, which is going to be high end area for people to purchase their own homes and then have the opportunity to still put those within the rental pool because they're all ski-in, ski-out homes. Then the condos that are in the village area that we have, we're still encouraging people to put them in the rental pool and to help with that. We've got some other things in the works. I don't know if I'm able to talk about those right now though. Adam Stoker: We'll wait and see. That's no problem. But it sounds like you don't have a demand issue. You have a supply issue as far as lodging goes up there. Lane Tucker: Yeah. As one person put it, we can't really cast a bigger net because it's not going to fit all the fish. Adam Stoker: Got it. Well that's interesting. You know, most people are focused on more, more, more, more. You guys are right now in a, "Hey, we're getting more now. We need to build the infrastructure." Lane Tucker: 31:27 Yeah. And we've got a really good base infrastructure for the resort itself and we're looking to enhance that because we don't want to overbuild and under perform. We want to keep that as a balance. And it's hard. That's a hard balance because it's a lot of the chicken and the egg scenario. Adam Stoker: Totally. Yeah. Which one do we do first, right? Well, tell me and we're going to kind of start to wrap up here, but tell me a little bit about — you're obviously competing with Southern California resorts. People have to travel a decent distance to get to you guys from Southern California or from Vegas. So, tell me what you're doing to stand out and make sure that the message is communicated effectively. Lane Tucker: 32:12 A lot of what we've been doing is the uncrowded and the price point. Because you could travel from Southern California to a larger resort in California and you're about a seven-hour travel and about a seven to seven-and-a-half-hour travel depending on where exactly in Southern California you are to get to Eagle Point from. But if go to the larger resorts, which have some amazing things to it, your ticket price tag is one-hundred-plus dollars. And for a family of four, you add ski school, rentals for younger kids or for even yourself and lodging, that's thousands and thousands of dollars. I mean, you're pushing like four-grand for a ski weekend. Coming to us, you've got a little extra time sometimes, like I said, half-hour to an hour longer, but with our tickets hovering somewhere right around 50 bucks a day ticket and our lodgings in the hundred and for a small one bedroom unit that can fit a family of four comfortably. You're looking at $120 to $150 and so your expense is way lower and your experience is way higher. Adam Stoker: Makes sense. Okay, great. Is there anything, Lane, that I haven't asked you that you feel like would benefit our listeners to hear? Lane Tucker: The snow's great here. I mean, you know, the Greatest Snow on Earth™ extends all into Southern Utah too. It's not just the Wasatch. Adam Stoker: Great. Well, Lane, this has been really insightful. I've appreciated having you on. I feel like a lot of these destinations that have a ski resort within them, there's a lot of different dynamics that they need to be aware of and I think you shed some light on those today, so thanks a lot for your time. Lane Tucker: Anytime. I appreciate the opportunity. Adam Stoker: 34:13 Great. Well, everybody, this has been the Destination Marketing Podcast with Adam Stoker. I want to remind everybody about our LinkedIn group. It's called Destination Marketers. It's growing every day and we have more and more people sharing insight and ideas in the group, and we want to invite all of you to join, participate, and help each other grow and get better and be better educated on marketing as we go. Same goes for our Facebook group. It's also called Destination Marketers, so check that out as well. Then, I also want to ask if you're enjoying the podcast and hopefully you are, if you've continued to listen, please leave us a review on iTunes or whatever podcast outlet you're using to download those, because it really does make a difference in how easy we are to find, in our ability to grow. So, thanks everybody for listening and we'll talk to you soon.
Page of
We recommend upgrading to the latest Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.
Please check your internet connection and refresh the page. You might also try disabling any ad blockers.
You can visit our support center if you're having problems.