Snowboarding's fizzling out in U.S. and that's hurting the winter resorts
Photo Credit: Snowboarding needs to go beyond its edgy image to survive. Flickr.com / Stef Lewandowski
Skift Take
The expansion of the sport is important, for the future of the sport and for the future of expanding the clientele of winter mountain resorts.
After exploding onto the scene about two decades ago, snowboarding is now sputtering in the United States, according to a recent study by RRC Associates...Snowboarders accounted for nearly one-third of visitors two years ago. Now that surge has fizzled.
The causes of the slowdown are many...Chief among them is age: the young “grommets” who fueled the sport’s explosion have matured..fewer young people seem to be taking up snowboarding. In the 2003-4 season more than 42 percent of all beginners on the slopes ages 14 and younger started out on a snowboard.
If nothing is done to reverse the slip, visits by snowboarders to resorts could plunge by one-third from its high by the winter of 2021-22.
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