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Site news: About the updating of our ski area information (September-December 2022)


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  • SnowJapan Admin

About the updating of our ski area information   [September-December 2022]

Every year we manually check and update the information about Japanese ski areas published on SnowJapan.

For the upcoming 2022-2023 season, the process has started.

It's complicated and very time-consuming. Here we will try to explain the process and what to expect:

  • As we check and update information, we are as careful and thorough as possible. 
  • Our intention is to bring you correct, reliable, and up-to-date information.
  • It is an entirely manual process.
  • Our information is original content and 100% ours.
  • We only use original and reliable Japanese sources.
  • Our updates for each individual ski area are often done in stages as more information becomes available and we become aware of it. As an example, planned opening dates are usually announced before lift ticket prices are announced, etc.
  • As such, updates in this period of time may seem somewhat random. There may be cases of some information from the previous season remaining on a page.
  • Updates do not all appear simultaneously. It is an ongoing process.
  • We try to update information for larger, more well-known and popular ski areas as early in the process as possible. But as we rely on official information sources, that is not always possible.
  • In our experience, many Japanese ski areas do not update their websites until November or even December.
  • You can expect the most visible updates to appear on SnowJapan during the period from late October through late November.
  • There are over 450 ski areas to check. It takes a lot of time!

As long-time followers of SnowJapan will know, we are most definitely not here to bring you marketing messaging or promotional press releases. No one is telling us what to do. It's all us - checking, updating, checking and updating manually... and as we see fit.

As part of our long-term plans, there will be even more in-depth information coming to the site in the near future. But more on that at a later date!

:friend:

 

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  • SnowJapan changed the title to Site news: About the updating of our ski area information (September-December 2022)
  • 4 weeks later...
  • SnowJapan Admin

SnowJapan update status (early October):

Information checked and updated for the 2022-2023 season: completed for 48 ski areas (*partly done for more)

Re-written and expanded ski area introductions: completed for 185 ski areas

Target: about 470 ski areas

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • SnowJapan Admin

A question answered!

Question

Why isn't your information for ABC Ski Area updated for the 2022-2023 season yet?  (It's the middle of October!)

Answer

Basically, one of two reasons.

Either ABC Ski Area itself has not yet updated its own information. (Many don't update until November. Some don't even update until December. Even some popular ski areas.)

Or they have updated, but we are not yet aware that they have.

It's a manual and gradual process. We manually check and update the information (and introductions) for over 450 ski areas. Many checks and updates are being made every day. Obviously, we cannot check hundreds of different ski areas every day.

We are going as quickly as possible whilst also being very careful to provide good and correct information (i.e. we're not rushing it through).

If you know of a ski area that has updated its information and we haven't, let us know, and we will get on it.

:friend:

 

 

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  • SnowJapan Admin

SnowJapan update status (mid-October):

All information checked and updated for the 2022-2023 season: completed for 58 ski areas (*partly done for more than that)

Re-written (and expanded) ski area introductions: completed for 290 ski areas

Target: about 470 ski areas

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • SnowJapan Admin

SnowJapan update status (late October):

All information checked and updated for the 2022-2023 season: completed for 110 ski areas (*partly done for more than that)

Re-written (and expanded) ski area introductions: completed for over 440 ski areas

 

Comment:

By late October 2022, less than a quarter of the ski areas in Japan seem to have updated (all) their own official information for the upcoming winter season. (As noted before, we can only update our own information once the ski areas have updated theirs).

November should see a good chunk of the remaining ski areas update their information. However, some will inevitably leave it until December.

It is the same every year, but we always are intrigued (and somewhat frustrated!) as to why some leave it so late. Even some of the big names. Having said that, over the years, we have learnt which ski areas tend to update early and which ski areas tend to leave it really late.

This year we have rewritten our original introductions for each ski area, with just a few more left to do. For most ski areas, we have also added new background information.

There are lots of price increases this year. Almost every ski area has increased lift ticket prices, some by quite a lot.

More comments later on in the process. OK, back to it...

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • SnowJapan Admin

SnowJapan update status (mid-November)

All information checked and updated for the 2022-2023 season: completed for 225 ski areas (*partly done for more than that)

Re-written (and expanded) ski area introductions: completed for all ski areas (though all will be re-checked and updated as other information is updated)

 

Comment:

By the middle of November 2022, we estimate that about half of the 470+ ski areas in Japan have updated their own websites and official information for the 2022-2023 season.

Most of the larger ski areas have been updated, but there are exceptions. (Just one example: as of this morning, Shiga Kogen has still not yet updated night skiing plans for the season). 

The second half of November should see many more updates.

Hopefully snow too!   :friend:

 

 

 

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  • SnowJapan Admin

SnowJapan update status (late November)

All information checked and updated for the 2022-2023 season: completed for 340 ski areas (partly done for more than that)

Information updates still need to be completed for about 140 ski areas

 

Comment:

It's nearly the end of November and proving to be a relatively mild start to winter. Hopefully, that will change later this week.

We continue to make adjustments to SnowJapan every day. As of today, about 140 ski areas in Japan have still not updated their information for the 2022-2023 season. Most of those remaining are small local ski areas. It might take another 2-3 weeks for the last ones to update. 

Someone asked us what exactly we are updating. We basically check everything. That includes ski area statistics, data, lift tickets, facilities, access info, news, etc. Then, we update, fix any mistakes and fine-tune our information.

Our daily 'Now' snow and weather reports are getting into gear, and you can find them here: https://www.snowjapan.com/japan-daily-snow-weather-reports.

Official ski area snow depth data will begin updating in the first half of December.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • SnowJapan Admin

SnowJapan update status (8th December)

All information checked and updated for the 2022-2023 season: completed for 380 ski areas (partly done for more than that)

Information updates still need to be completed for about 110 ski areas

 

Comment:

There are still over 100 ski areas in Japan that have not yet updated their information for the 2022-2023 season.

It feels like updates have actually slowed down this last week. So we will take a few days away from that particular work to hopefully allow more updates to appear next week.

We always find it very strange that so many ski areas leave it so late every year, but it is what it is!

Once all of the updates have been made, probably around Christmas, we will update our Japan-wide statistics (various guide sections, graphs, etc). We need to wait until our database is all up to date before doing that.
 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • SnowJapan Admin

SnowJapan update status (20th December)

Ski areas that still have not updated their information for the 2022-2023 season: about 60 ski areas.

It seems like quite a few of them literally wait until they are open!

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • SnowJapan Admin

Happy New Year

At long last, and with all but a few exceptions, we have been able to update our information.

We will update various data and charts within our Guides section in the next few weeks.

Due to the time it takes to complete the Japan-wide information updates (see above), it seems realistic that our data/chart updates will always occur in January rather than December, as initially thought.
 

 

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