Volume 27 White Season 2005-2006 Report DISCUSS THIS FEATURE HERE 7th April 2006

"God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
courage to change the things we can,
and wisdom to know the difference."
(AA motto)

It has now been seven months since I last sat down to pen a full column of the setting journals (following an aborted attempt peak-season). While taken for granted in the snow industry that all workers enter “reactive mode” at some point during peak season, despite the best of intentions/preparation I found myself stuck in such a state for just under half a year. What happened? Let me have the honor and pleasure of guiding you through it…

Summer 2005 in Japan was the kind where tarmacs at airports soften to the point that loaded down planes sometimes get stuck & need to be pulled free. There was little respite from the heat during daytime, but nights began to cool significantly. Occasionally a typhoon would blow over the Japanese archipelago, cooling things down at the upper elevations…

A few years back in September the resort hosted a country music festival (featuring Roseanne Cash, The Charlie Daniels Band & others) on a neighboring plateau about 1,000 meters above sea level. The bands that day (who had been expecting to play at the resort) froze in the typhoon at that elevation. Upon return to the resort, a shivering band member came off the bus and immediately asked for directions to the nearest bar (whiskey was required to warm her up). The Plateau concerned actually closes each winter due to the amount of snow there, & is only accessible via Pisten Bully…

September also saw the return to Japan of many foreigners living here, and one friend was fortunate to visit Switzerland. While there, he both took some fantastic pictures of the Matterhorn & also stumbled across a plaque outlining a relationship between Zermatt & Myoko Kogen dating back to 1968.

It is one of the neat things about my work with the resort, in that people from all over the world get in touch with neat little tidbits about the place. Another example of such was when I received an email from an aid agency in Tanzania. In Japan automobile inspections are such that relatively new vehicles are discarded with a lot of life left in them, & one of the resorts old vans wound up in Africa via Dubai. The aid agency that was considering purchase of the vehicle from a dealer discovered a resort logo on the van, plugged the name into a search engine, & found my e-mail address via the URL for the English site (they were writing to me to enquire about the historical record of the van).

Back in Japan, the resort finally began to actively promote the Joetsu region in Autumn. Fall is one of the nicest times to visit the area (when there are no typhoons) and this year the resort put together a fall holiday package incorporating some local history.

The month also saw extensive preparations both for the upcoming white season as well as a trip to Australia by the President & CEO of ARAI to attend a Terrapinn conference. The Asia Pacific Alpine Investment and Development Summit 2005 brought together decision makers in the snow business for round table discussions and the like on where the industry is going.

For me the month also signaled how busy I was becoming, as online bookings began to take off. The unlimited nature of the Internet is such that different users simultaneously can forward online booking requests for resort services (without encountering a busy telephone line if they tried to call instead). In this case the booking forms arrive in my e-mail account, and I liaise with both the guest and the respective resort service. This process turns into something similar to a rally in tennis as the e-mails go back and forth up until the guest arrives at the resort. While I am used to such a process now (having done it for several years), combining it with business trips as well as the process of hiring International Staff made for few dull moments…

The answer for the heavier workload mentioned above was to come up with something called an “English Online Snow Concierge Service”. In previous white seasons, once a guest had a confirmed reservation I would then follow-up with them via e-mail prior to arrival explaining both resort services and answering queries and the like. Given that such a process became both repetitive and time consuming, a page on the English site was made for such a purpose, & only required a link for the page to be forwarded via e-mail. Guests I think were also happier with such a service at their disposal as their resort knowledge prior to arrival increased.

It really has been quite an adventure to date dealing with English reservations for the resort. What really needs to be said is that although the system is improved annually, year-on-year increasing volumes test such improvements to the point that what seemed like a step ahead of the game prior to the season becomes essential by the end of it. In addition to the English Online Snow Concierge Service, 3 other major improvements followed this season in relation to my online concierge duties (which are mentioned below).

The snow industry in Japan shifts into high gear at the beginning of this month. Weather reports take on greater significance with each day and so are posted more frequently as all anxiously await the first snow (if it has not already arrived). Although the start of the month was rather mild, the upper elevations of the mountains in the area had already been dusted with snow, & the first snow arrived at the resort on the 15th of November…

The month also involved a promotional tour to Tokyo that I was a part of. Although I had done business trips on my own and with co-workers to industry-related events in the past, this time was different. A resort exclusive event was planned from start to finish, and carried out with careful precision. Marketing for the resort to date has been such that it has been difficult for potential guests to visually identify what the resort represents.  The “open house” style event put on changed that as it permitted guests to liaise with staff, try some Micro-Brew and even get their hands massaged. It was one of my proudest moments working at the resort to date for the following two reasons:

Of course, lessons in English are a big part of the draw for guests to the resort, and historically have been the most difficult part of my duties to date. A former manager of such a service at the resort summed up the difficulty nicely when he said, “Guides are not Hotel rooms - they need to be in good health so must take rests, meals, holidays and the like”. Reserving the services of such guides (especially Native English speaking ones) on behalf of inbound guests became a real challenge (especially in the beginning when there were no such guides!), & improvements to the system came gradually. The first step was to develop an online booking form, which served to both standardize such reservations (data presented in the same printed manner each time) & desensitize them (much better to have the request in basic English two weeks in advance as opposed to at the time of the desired service). Secondly it helped to bring in foreign seasonal part time workers (six were employed this season). The final step was to create a neutral area whereby reservation requests could be passed back and forth. At the start I was constantly visiting the guide reception to make reservations, and as a result encountered a different clerk most times. This past season however I was given a special box to put reservation requests into, and these would then be processed & returned (speeding up the system by removing unnecessary human interactions in it). Although still quite a rally back and forth, each participant had a much clearer vision of what was happening & therefore peace of mind throughout the process.

Although I have been in the game long enough now to know that December is never quiet, this year was exceptional compared with the same month in previous years for several reasons.

The weather dominated in almost a scary manner. At the start of the month the mountain base had no snow but a little over two weeks later it was a solid 2.5 meters. Up top over the same time frame snow levels went from approximately 1 meter to 4. Although such a start is a dream-come-true for many skiers and boarders, from a snow management viewpoint it is too much too quickly. Access to the area also suffered, to the point that the local road (Route 18) from almost the Sea in Naoetsu up to Myoko Kogen jammed to a standstill with cars and trucks on Thursday, 15th December (the culprit for the backup that day were trucks without snow tires/chains trying to make it through the mountain pass).

The month was also eventful in terms of seasonal foreign workers, as for the first time a guide returned for a second white season, and another was hired locally. Having native speakers of English working as guides at the resort makes operations so much simpler from dealing with guests to building up English-speaking skills of fellow staff. Even foreigners not working at the resort get in touch at this time of year, creating a kind of community.

In North America where I grew up there was always a strong bond between snow resorts and Christmas, but I discovered that it wasn’t so in Japan. For years I had pestered management to bring Santa to the resort, but it never came about until this year. For 3 consecutive nights the Kids Playground was turned into a 2-hour extravaganza that climaxed with Santa appearing & presenting gifts to the children. Qualified staff took turns playing the role of Santa and it was interesting the way the Japanese & Expatriate children approached Santa. While the local kids were cautious when receiving their gifts, expat children were excited & sitting on Santa’s knee and the like…

Another improvement to the Online Concierge Service came about concerning restaurant reservations. Before I could speak Japanese fluently, I used to actually visit each resort restaurant to make dinner reservations for incoming guests, but this both took a lot of time and was not consistent. Like the Guide service mentioned above, the first step to improving the process of dinner reservations was to develop an online booking form, especially useful for discerning food allergies and the like. The next step was to create a template form outlining all dining requests for a party over a visit. The final step was to internally fax this form to the restaurants concerned, so that they could make adjustments as necessary & come up with the best plan for each party.

December finishes with a bang at the resort in the form of an annual countdown party on the plaza, & this year was no different. Starting at around 10 PM, hotel guests and locals mix on the plaza that is the center of the resort village, buying food from stalls that are set up, & watching event buskers plying their trade. Prior to midnight arranged entertainment rallies the crowd and this is followed by the countdown and fireworks display. Staff perform duties such as crowd control, & this year I guarded an area that was off limits due to the pyrotechnics…

The snow was such at the beginning of the year that it began to make international news. I would go home at the end of a long day & turn on the TV to BBC News only to see reports from Japan about all the snow! Fresh snow arrived almost daily for two weeks from the last week in December, making a 4-meter base of snow at the mountain & 6.5-meters up top! Such a figure was not reached the previous white season until the first week in March. While this gave skiers and boarders a run for their money on the slopes, it created havoc for locals in the area. In nearby areas the military was called in to help clear snow from roads, while neighborhoods would shut down on a particular day to hold snow-clearing sessions.

In the midst of all this, those leading a non-resort life return back to school/work following year-end holidays. Such usually means a significant jump in hits to snow related web sites as skiers/boarders research options for the remainder of the season. Throw in a couple of major holidays such as mid-term break for schools or the lunar New Year and bottlenecks quickly emerge. Although this was expected, the volume of snow was not & it made for challenging times at work. Colleagues would be heading out to clear snow and ask me to come along but I would have to decline due to the demands from cyberspace. One of the difficulties I’ve faced in my work has been the fact that unlike many of my coworkers who deal with the here and now during white season, reservations can concern events taking place up to a year away. Being out of synchronicity with others in a Japanese company runs the risk of alienation, but in my mind cannot be helped at times in order to keep things moving in the long run.

Although traditionally a rough month in terms of weather (especially wind), this year was relatively smooth. With a solid base throughout the month of over 3 meters at the lower elevations of the mountain and 5 meters at the top, skiers and boarders were offered some great days out on the slopes. Even the younger ones could enjoy the stable conditions…

Clear sunny days however often tempt those that don’t know any better to go out of bounds, and such created friction at the resort this year. Essentially the Patrol would order Japanese Skiers/Boarders attempting to go out of bounds to stop and they would, but foreign skiers/boarders ignored such orders on occasion (I understand that only foreigners ignored the orders). Management reacted strongly to this, and a message has been on the English website ever since asking people to respect the rules of the mountain.

Snow Japan also supported the resort and allowed us to start a thread on the forums to explain the situation (here). Members of the Snow Japan community really helped to put everything in perspective concerning the issue, and I understand that since then there has only been some minor issues - I’m very grateful.

While February is also one of the busiest months of the year, a significant piece of the guest relations puzzle fell into place for me in the form of a guest carte. The resort has a reservations & information center, which handles hotel reservations up to 3 days prior to arrival of parties concerned, whereupon the particular details of an inbound party are transferred to the related hotel. I never used to do this & as a result was more or less “on call” throughout such stays, but this became frustrating for not only myself but perhaps guests as well (who I believe are seeking a wider array of how the resort services are presented). While 72 hours in advance of arrival is premature in my mind (given the more last-minute nature of International reservations as opposed to Japanese ones), signing off in the form of a guest carte not only clarifies division of labor concerns, but ensures that all aspects of a reservation are both taken care of and communicated to relevant parties prior to guests arriving. Thus, either on the day of arrival (or the date preceding it) I would access a template in Japanese and plug in the relevant details of a stay. The Guest Carte would then be forwarded to the front desk of the related resort hotel prior to arrival, and followed up with a telephone call asking if there are any questions. While the hotels used to ring me with all sorts of trivial concerns in previous years, this carte acted almost like a calling card for the party, to the point that a stay could be carried out independently of yours truly, which is the way it should be? I met quite a famous man in the hotel business a few years back who said as much (while it may be okay to meet the guests, attending to them while at the resort should be left up to the staff immediately concerned).

March was also a good month for skiing and boarding, with a solid base of snow leading the way. Snow fell at the end of the month for 2 full days (as of early April there is 2.5 meters of snow at the base of the mountain and well over 5 meters still up top).

Personally the workload has lightened somewhat, allowing me the chance to catch my breath. This work is kind of like being a forward in a game of rugby. In the thick of things there is no time to take stock of all the good things happening, but instead it is important to just keep the head down and keep on going. With my responsibility to the International Guests having almost been fulfilled for this season, it is like the final whistle of a rugby game being blown.

In my case this happened at a convenience store recently. I was at the register waiting for the clerk to come and ring up my purchases and noticed an ARAI MOUNTAIN & SPA poster along with several others displayed on the wall behind the counter. I’ve been looking at the ARAI posters annually ever since they started coming out in 1993, but the one for White Season 2005 - ’06 is unique for two reasons in my mind - it was the only poster of several on display that offered an English URL, and it is the first time in the history of the resort that an English URL has been featured on an ARAI poster.

It was then that I realized the whistle going off in my head signaled a win!

The posters above are a set of two. The resort used to make two sizes of posters (large and small), but went with the complementary style above this season. For small spaces only one poster can be used, but with larger spaces the set can be utilized. If the designer has his way next year, then posters may come in a set of three or four...

The Gondola and upper lifts here at Arai are slated to remain open daily until 14th May this season, so there's quite a while left in the season. 

Come with me next time in the setting journals (here) to read an interview with a couple working at the resort as foreign seasonal workers. Until then (and as always), I’m looking forward to hearing from you in the thread linked to this column. Oh yeah, remember to have a safe one, eh?