$355 for 3 Hours

Are US Ski Instructors more than twice as effective as their European
counterparts? Visitors to Breckenridge this year (like us) will find
that a 3 hour private lesson costs $355. The same service in Val
Gardena, Italy is charged at less than $150. Why the difference?
Insurance? Quality of service, or just the figure the school can get
away with charging?

Redders wrote:

Are US Ski Instructors more than twice as effective as their European
counterparts? Visitors to Breckenridge this year (like us) will find
that a 3 hour private lesson costs $355. The same service in Val
Gardena, Italy is charged at less than $150. Why the difference?
Insurance? Quality of service, or just the figure the school can get
away with charging?

I'm betting it's insurance. That's where most of your lift ticket
dollar goes in the US, at least, and I'm betting it's the same for
instruction.

--
Mary Malmros
Some days you're the windshield, other days you're the bug.

Mary Malmros wrote:
Redders wrote:

Are US Ski Instructors more than twice as effective as their European
counterparts? Visitors to Breckenridge this year (like us) will find
that a 3 hour private lesson costs $355. The same service in Val
Gardena, Italy is charged at less than $150. Why the difference?
Insurance? Quality of service, or just the figure the school can get
away with charging?


I'm betting it's insurance. That's where most of your lift ticket
dollar goes in the US, at least, and I'm betting it's the same for
instruction.

Mary, you should know better than to repeat that insurance canard.
Insurance is even today a small part of ticket prices.

Bob Lee wrote:

Mary Malmros wrote:


Redders wrote:


Are US Ski Instructors more than twice as effective as their European
counterparts? Visitors to Breckenridge this year (like us) will find
that a 3 hour private lesson costs $355. The same service in Val
Gardena, Italy is charged at less than $150. Why the difference?
Insurance? Quality of service, or just the figure the school can get
away with charging?

I'm betting it's insurance. That's where most of your lift ticket
dollar goes in the US, at least, and I'm betting it's the same for
instruction.


Got a cite for the insurance cost proportion?

Just what they told us in employee training last fall.

--
Mary Malmros
Some days you're the windshield, other days you're the bug.

Bob Lee wrote:

Mary Malmros wrote:


Bob Lee wrote:


Mary Malmros wrote:



Redders wrote:



Are US Ski Instructors more than twice as effective as their European
counterparts? Visitors to Breckenridge this year (like us) will find
that a 3 hour private lesson costs $355. The same service in Val
Gardena, Italy is charged at less than $150. Why the difference?
Insurance? Quality of service, or just the figure the school can get
away with charging?

I'm betting it's insurance. That's where most of your lift ticket
dollar goes in the US, at least, and I'm betting it's the same for
instruction.

Got a cite for the insurance cost proportion?

Just what they told us in employee training last fall.


Now *that* was an interesting answer.

What's so interesting about it, Bob? Quit being coy.

--
Mary Malmros
Some days you're the windshield, other days you're the bug.

Bob Lee wrote:
[snip to make someone happy]
Well, I'm thinking your employers might have thought it'd be in their
interest to over-represent the impact of insurance costs. Like lal I've
heard that the actual costs of insurance are a small proportion what is
charged for a lift ticket. Maybe it's kind of cynical of me and all,
but I can see the employers blowing smoke about it.

Right, but I don't buy lift tickets from them...so why would they blow
smoke to me?

BTW, when you quote a whole post with just a few lines of original text
[snip to make someone happy again
or is that message for
non-moderators only?

No need to snark about it, Bob; I included all that for context in the
past, but since you don't like it, I removed it all this time. I'll
remove even more in the future, so as to preserve at least a 2:1
original-to-old text ratio. Zat work?

I'm going to go google for a bit to see if I can get something about the
proportion of insurance costs in lift tickets

That's good of you. Mine's hearsay too, but at least I remember who I
heard it from ;-)

--
Mary Malmros
Some days you're the windshield, other days you're the bug.

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 21:29:44 -0600, Mary Malmros
wrote:

Bob Lee wrote:
[snip to make someone happy]
Well, I'm thinking your employers might have thought it'd be in their
interest to over-represent the impact of insurance costs. Like lal I've
heard that the actual costs of insurance are a small proportion what is
charged for a lift ticket. Maybe it's kind of cynical of me and all,
but I can see the employers blowing smoke about it.

Right, but I don't buy lift tickets from them...so why would they blow
smoke to me?

Maybe so that they can leave you with fewer of the touron's
breadcrumbs than you truly deserve?

Seriously, for what they pay instructors, instruction is badly
overpriced in the US- plus people are still expected to tip. Hiring a
guide is the same. Much cheaper in Europe - or at least it was back
when the dollar was worth something.

nate

Bob Lee wrote:
Mary Malmros wrote:


Bob Lee wrote:


Mary Malmros wrote:


Bob Lee wrote:


Mary Malmros wrote:


Redders wrote:


Are US Ski Instructors more than twice as effective as their European
counterparts? Visitors to Breckenridge this year (like us) will find
that a 3 hour private lesson costs $355. The same service in Val
Gardena, Italy is charged at less than $150. Why the difference?
Insurance? Quality of service, or just the figure the school can get
away with charging?

I'm betting it's insurance. That's where most of your lift ticket
dollar goes in the US, at least, and I'm betting it's the same for
instruction.

Got a cite for the insurance cost proportion?

Just what they told us in employee training last fall.

Now *that* was an interesting answer.

What's so interesting about it, Bob? Quit being coy.


Well, I'm thinking your employers might have thought it'd be in their
interest to over-represent the impact of insurance costs. Like lal I've
heard that the actual costs of insurance are a small proportion what is
charged for a lift ticket. Maybe it's kind of cynical of me and all,
but I can see the employers blowing smoke about it.

BTW, when you quote a whole post with just a few lines of original text
do you get an auto-message in email telling you "Your post appears to
have less than the required percentage of new text. Please trim your
quotes more carefully in the future," or is that message for
non-moderators only?

I get it too; And again, I suppose.


I'm going to go google for a bit to see if I can get something about the
proportion of insurance costs in lift tickets

Bob

Bob Lee wrote:

Mary Malmros wrote:


Bob Lee wrote:
[snip to make someone happy]

Well, I'm thinking your employers might have thought it'd be in their
interest to over-represent the impact of insurance costs. Like lal I've
heard that the actual costs of insurance are a small proportion what is
charged for a lift ticket. Maybe it's kind of cynical of me and all,
but I can see the employers blowing smoke about it.

Right, but I don't buy lift tickets from them...so why would they blow
smoke to me?


Well, I admitted it was probably cynical of me...but don't you (or the
ski area employees) have contact with the public? Or maybe they're just
justifying keeping their wages low? ;^)


BTW, when you quote a whole post with just a few lines of original text

[snip to make someone happy again
or is that message for

non-moderators only?

No need to snark about it, Bob; I included all that for context in the
past, but since you don't like it, I removed it all this time. I'll
remove even more in the future, so as to preserve at least a 2:1
original-to-old text ratio. Zat work?


I wasn't trying to be snarky, and I actually *like* it when the whole
post is there for reference. I was just wondering, honest. It seemed
kind of weird to me is all, and since I saw you do the same thing I got
called on, I wondered...

Okay, I apologize; no, I'm not seeing a message, but it may be because
of my devastatingly efficient junk filters.

I'm going to go google for a bit to see if I can get something about the
proportion of insurance costs in lift tickets

That's good of you. Mine's hearsay too, but at least I remember who I
heard it from ;-)


Hey, hey, hey now - did you consider that maybe my mind is *so* full of
important and amazing facts that it's like an overflowing Rolodex and
some stuff falls out?

Actually, I thought that was dandruff, and I was politely ignoring it. ;-)

But I couldn't find anything definitive that I
cared to pull up. Googling
factors+influencing+costs+skiing+insurance+"ski+ar eas" gave me a bunch
of .pdf files that I didn't care to download via dial-up at home. About
the only thing I did find on the topic was some people on the Snow
Journal forum that claimed to have 'heard' the insurance cost was about
10%:
http://www.snowjournal.com/page.php?cid=topic5469

Well, maybe lal will have a reference for us. A very high figure would
not surprise me, however; I heard some premium numbers from some friends
of mine who are whitewater outfitters, and they were truly shocking.
The two are not the same, but I would sort of expect the recent trend in
rapid increases in insurance costs for outfitters to also be present in
the ski industry.

--
Mary Malmros
Some days you're the windshield, other days you're the bug.

Mary Malmros wrote:
snip


I'm betting it's insurance. That's where most of your lift ticket
dollar goes in the US, at least, and I'm betting it's the same for
instruction.



Got a cite for the insurance cost proportion?


Just what they told us in employee training last fall.


I also heard this from my former employer, a Colorado ski area.
They even went on to say that the difference in price between Utah
resorts (at the time I think Snowbird was $25 and we were $45 or so) was
due to the different liability laws in Co and Utah that force the areas
in Co to have higher insurance costs. I never researched it, but it
didn't seem unlikely to me.

Matt