PSIA/AASI General Managers Survey 2017

We conducted a survey to help us grow and move in the right direction and this is a summary of the feedback we received from you and other Snowsport School management teams.

Biggest Challenge for Snowsports schools are:

Attracting and retaining guests, young staff, quality instructors, and finding experienced instructors willing to instruct beginners.

Biggest Opportunities for Snowsport schools in this diverse and rapidly growing market are:

Focus on customer service, instructors have good communication skills, skiing and riding skills are secondary.  Share and learn of ways to drive retention,  more excitement for Children programs,  and offer more than one way of teaching…our guests all learn differently.

Suggestions on how PSIA/AASI can help improve the Snowsports Schools were similar across the Nation:

• Change the beginner experience together and focus on the importance of the first time guests.
• Offer more Entry-level teaching technique clinics; IE. ‘the first 5 minutes’, ‘Starting your lesson out right’, ‘How best to invite your guest back’, ‘Using Social Media, Smartphones to invite your guest back’.
• Make it easier, simplify, focus more on the beginner lesson and have consistency in lessons and recognize the industry trends within the curriculum.
• Encourage promoting the lifestyle, make the process fun and show the new staff why they want to be PSIA/AASI members to help grow their life skills.
• Offer something fresh for instructors.
• Focus more on training the soft skills of the Instructors and focusing on the guest experience.
• Be less technical, analytical and jargon-focused

-The teaching methods and methodology of PSIA/AASI are dated and overrated.  Traditional teaching methodology and lesson structure is not beginner friendly and the training’s are overly technical.