stemik 14 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 Originally Posted By: tripler Originally Posted By: stemik there are plans to put in a new gondola from the "left side" Nakiyama base area. I think planning permission has been approved....but and a big BUT, is that it all depends on skier numbers, financing etc..... Wow, that's interesting. Do you know if it would go all the way to the top? Nakiyama could do with a boost. Re-open the haunted hotel... I don't know but there is a model in the Tokyu office. Let me see if i can take a look at it.Though i guess the gondola would have to stop at 109 complex. What haunted hotel? Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 Lift staff are paid bugger all so maybe not such a big expense. This year's fall in numbers, I'd guess a combo of too much snow on roads, swine flu, and record fall in winter bonuses. O/s visitors anecdotally down too, maybe due to nightmare season last time. Long lifts are a nightmare for beginners. Snowploughing Happo top to bottom must be a killer. Link to post Share on other sites
tripler 0 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 Last season at Hakuba I think it was overseas visitors had already booked their holidays before the financial meltdown kicked in. This season it's seeing the effect of world recession on visitor numbers. Link to post Share on other sites
stemik 14 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 i would say that most places on Honshu were so bad last season skiers & boarders went to the "higher" resorts Link to post Share on other sites
iiyamadude 6 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 Funny, I'd love to go back and see if many people living in the areas were admitting to places and conditions being "so bad" when we were in the middle of last season or not.... (Not singling you out there stemik, just in general.) Link to post Share on other sites
stemik 14 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 maybe it was thinking.....it could only get better.... Link to post Share on other sites
tripler 0 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 Originally Posted By: stemik What haunted hotel? Next to the Thai place. They could make it so you can get out at 109 or stay on till the top. Though it wastes time slowing down the gondola half way. If you could get a copy of the plan, I'd really like to see it. Link to post Share on other sites
iiyamadude 6 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 Well, no. Thats different. If conditions were bad and people were putting it out there that they are not so, it's intentionally misleading. Doesn't matter if they are thinking it could only get better or not. Link to post Share on other sites
stemik 14 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 that's true Link to post Share on other sites
muikabochi 208 Posted February 10, 2010 Author Share Posted February 10, 2010 There was loads of it going on iiyama. I even got some PMs from some irate people on here for simply posting info on poor conditions I saw when I visited a place - nothing made up at all. It seems that certain people do not want it out there unless it is for their benefit. I have no respect for that. I'm happy to have zero vested interest in winter sports biz and related. Link to post Share on other sites
stemik 14 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 Originally Posted By: tripler Originally Posted By: stemik What haunted hotel? Next to the Thai place. They could make it so you can get out at 109 or stay on till the top. Though it wastes time slowing down the gondola half way. If you could get a copy of the plan, I'd really like to see it. I can't get a copy of the plan!! Link to post Share on other sites
SKI 15 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 Thats a damn shame. Just think, if you could, tripler would have been able to advise them on their mistakes and the best way forward and we would all have benefitted in the long run! Link to post Share on other sites
SKI 15 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 muika - do tell us who that was! Link to post Share on other sites
muikabochi 208 Posted February 10, 2010 Author Share Posted February 10, 2010 As much as part of me would be happy to, I'll refrain from doing that SKI. Link to post Share on other sites
stemik 14 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 Originally Posted By: muikabochi As much as part of me would be happy to, I'll refrain from doing that SKI. I bet there were a few signs of relief after reading this Link to post Share on other sites
Thundercat 60 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 The problem with 'fudging the numbers' so to speak and being misleading about snow conditions is that you'll only be able to fool someone once. If I had been roped into a ski holiday on the premise that the conditions were good when they were really crap I'd guarantee that I'd never go there again... short term gains from misleading information will inevitably come back to haunt you! Link to post Share on other sites
muikabochi 208 Posted February 10, 2010 Author Share Posted February 10, 2010 I know what you are saying and it would be good if people who peddled misinformation did get some negatives because of it but my guess is that such people know that potential downside but see the benefits as outweighing it. There's always other people and perhaps even the ones who read the info might forget etc. Its clear to me though that some people just simply cannot help it and probably even begin to believe stuff themselves such is the bottom line. Link to post Share on other sites
s3phis 0 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 I think the comment "would rather run their business into the ground rather than change" dead on hit a sore spot. It's always baffled me but change is one of the hardest things to initiate in most Japanese businesses even though it's plain to see that the current system is not working. With the ski resorts there's a large mix of things. However, I think the biggest issue is the lack of fore-sight. Most of the resorts were developed in the 70s and 80s, during the big economic bubble. While it's all well to say "but no one can fore-see when the bubble breaks", I'm not really convinced that they planned for anything. There are a lot of ski resorts where the lift continuity and redundancy raises a few eyebrows, lift systems are somewhat questionable, infrastructure is inadequate or over the top. I think the biggest thing that hurts the Japanese ski industry is a lack of strategy. On a large scale, I think Japan's pretty poor at using money. I don't have any hard proof but company budgets, government spendings and taxes seems quite poorly managed. It's to the point where Japan never really recovered from the previous recession. Looking at the sales figures from 10 years ago, it's quite hard to comprehend the difference between now and back then. While I can't post the figures, it's not an overstatement to say the number of people skiing were between seven to ten fold. I'm sure people are aware of how ridiculous the Japanese pools can be (with regards to the overcrowded pools) in summer, skiing was basically the same. You could basically hike up and ski down at least twice in the time it'd take to reach the front of the lift queues. Skiing had a big appeal to companies and universities. It used to have the same social networking status as golf (which is basically why we have SAJ grades, but that's another story). You could get ahead just by being in the same ski circle as your boss. The biggest change to this was the introduction of snowboarding. The veterans here would probably know the story pretty well but Japan was very slow in accepting snowboarders. While there were a variety of reasons, the biggest reason was the stigma of badly behaved youth. What most people didn't realise was that the times were changing; people didn't really want to adhere to the strict heirachy of ski circles and wanted to try something that seemed more liberating/free/fun/fashionable. By rejecting the market, they basically lost a lot of potential customers. This season, I know of a number of ski resorts that had to close down. While they're technically competitors, I think it's a sad state of affairs when veteran staff members of other ski resorts apply for jobs and have to somewhat start over again. I think one of the major tell tale signs that a ski resort is struggling is how smooth the resort is groomed. Recent years, people don't really get paid overtime so the people don't want to groom at night and then they rush the morning groom and you get bumps and imperfections everywhere. While it's not too bad on normal runs, it becomes down right dangerous on competition courses. Talking to the other ski resorts, I think Nozawa's still pretty lucky. We've changed from magnetic chips to paper tickets and a number of lifts are closed during the week, but we're still on the greener grasses. TL;DR As people have already stated, I think Japan's ski industry needs to have a better strategy to change to appeal to the current generation of potential skiers and boarders as well as the international market. Change needs to happen before the industry canibalises on itself more than it already does. Link to post Share on other sites
tripler 0 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 Originally Posted By: Ryoma Nozawa's still pretty lucky. We've changed from magnetic chips to paper tickets Why did you change to paper tickets? Are plastic tokens more expensive even after you've made the initial investment? Link to post Share on other sites
muikabochi 208 Posted February 10, 2010 Author Share Posted February 10, 2010 Very interesting Ryoma. Link to post Share on other sites
s3phis 0 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 Originally Posted By: tripler Originally Posted By: Ryoma Nozawa's still pretty lucky. We've changed from magnetic chips to paper tickets Why did you change to paper tickets? Are plastic tokens more expensive even after you've made the initial investment? The running costs are more expensive but not by a huge margin. The biggest costs with the chips is that those chips don't last forever. They have a 5-10 year span, depending on how they're used. If you bash them around too much, they become unusable. We got to the point where we were looking to have to replace the old chips and that's where the wallet cruncher comes in... those chips are really not cheap. When the chips were first implemented a number of people opposed it because it wasn't really necessary. It makes things more convenient, yes... particularly when it's very very crowded but in retrospective, I think the resort jumped the gun a bit too early. Whether it was worth the initial investment is still debatable. The new option, which is a lot more affordable, is using IC or RFID chips. The running costs are lower than magnetic chips but the biggest difference is the costs of the chips. Link to post Share on other sites
beowulf 1 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 Originally Posted By: Ryoma Originally Posted By: tripler Originally Posted By: Ryoma Nozawa's still pretty lucky. We've changed from magnetic chips to paper tickets Why did you change to paper tickets? Are plastic tokens more expensive even after you've made the initial investment? The running costs are more expensive but not by a huge margin. The biggest costs with the chips is that those chips don't last forever. They have a 5-10 year span, depending on how they're used. If you bash them around too much, they become unusable. We got to the point where we were looking to have to replace the old chips and that's where the wallet cruncher comes in... those chips are really not cheap. When the chips were first implemented a number of people opposed it because it wasn't really necessary. It makes things more convenient, yes... particularly when it's very very crowded but in retrospective, I think the resort jumped the gun a bit too early. Whether it was worth the initial investment is still debatable. The new option, which is a lot more affordable, is using IC or RFID chips. The running costs are lower than magnetic chips but the biggest difference is the costs of the chips. Does anybody know what type of chips they use at Zao? Because they are well cool. Link to post Share on other sites
Thundercat 60 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 Same ones in Niseko. Not sure the company name though! It's a really convenient system! Link to post Share on other sites
spook 0 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 that's an interesting point about the quality of the grooming ryoma.　at a bunch of different japanese resorts i've ridden, the grooming has been shoddy. you don't really expect 4inch ridges to be left in the middle of runs Link to post Share on other sites
I'm Sexy 0 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 7-10 fold meaning 700%? Link to post Share on other sites
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