Resorts Adapt to the End of the Off-Season

The adage “If you build it, they will come” has multiple meanings for Cory Carlson, regional marketing director at Four Seasons Resort and Residences Jackson Hole. 

Last year’s renovation of guestrooms and suites brought an influx of interest on social media — and reservations. And in the past couple of years, Carlson and his team noticed that more potential guests were clicking the online booking calendar, trying to reserve dates when the resort was traditionally closed.

"Jackson Hole is becoming more robust, and we kept seeing November becoming very apparent as a time people wanted to be here,” Carlson said.

That, combined with data about the number of passengers on daily flights into the market, were the deciding factors for Carlson and his team.

Data from analytics firm Cirium's Diio service that Skift checked suggested there's a lot of variance by day and season. On a Monday in early February ski season, Jackson Hole had 1,687 departing seats across airlines American, Delta, United, and Alaska. But during shoulder season last year, it was only about 800.

“We said, we need to give this a try," Carlson said. "It’s a huge success story for us."

The Four Seasons resort doubled its occupancy percentage for the entire month of November, as compared to the single-digit percentage when