Eldora Mountain Resort
Designing a limited contact resort experience for the COVID-19 era.
Eldora Mountain Resort is a ski area located 45 minutes from Boulder, CO. My team spent an intensive week-long design sprint researching and prototyping solutions for next season’s reopening. We presented our solutions to representatives from Powdr, Eldora’s parent company.
The Problem
Ski Resorts are high-touch
When COVID-19 hit Colorado in March of 2020, Eldora suspend all resort operations in compliance with the Governors’ Executive Order. Resorts were left to completely rethink what the 2020-21 season would look like.
The resort has a range of 5,000 - 20,000 visits per week and employs 60+ people daily.
Implementing changes to ensure the safety of both guests and staff is necessary if skiing is to be a viable activity in the COVID-19 era.
Our Solution
A physical distanced reopening plan
Our solutions focused on three key touch points of concern for Powdr:
Purchasing daily lift ticketsEldora currently requires guests to purchase day tickets at the onsite box office to avoid dissatisfaction amongst guests who pre-purchase a day pass but are unable to park.
Renting gearWe rethought the experience of the gear rental process at Eldora in order to limit person-to-person contact while still providing the support that new skiers need.
Après Ski / Food and beverage serviceWe reworked the ordering process and pick-up for food and beverage service at the resort in order to make the process more safe.
Challenges
Existing infrastructure
Current tech stack
Our proposed solutions needed to work with the existing tech infrastructure onsite at Eldora. These include: RFID chips in lift tickets & passes, Purple WiFi on the mountain (mainly at the base), Aspenware for the website frontend and Square POS for food/beverage and rental/retail.
We also took into account the limited cell service on the mountain.
Parking
Eldora is notorious for its limited parking; it’s not uncommon for the parking lot to fill up by 9 am on weekends. This parking lot situation led Eldora’s quirky on-site only for day pass purchases. *Other pass are available online.
This physical constraint turned into an opportunity for our limited physical interaction strategy AKA daily capacity limits.
Physical Interaction
Most of Eldora’s resort operations involve close person to person interactions. Social Distancing has become the norm in our COVID-era daily lives. Strategizing and implementing this practice into essential resort operations was at the heart of our decision making.
Our Process
1 week design sprint
During this weeklong intensive design sprint our team had four days to research the problem, ideate, and prototype solutions before presenting to the client on Friday.
I served my team as a UX researcher, strategist, illustrator, designer.
Defining the Problem Statement
How might we create a contactless experience so that both skiers and staff can continue to enjoy and relax safely at Eldora Mountain Resort?
Research Part 1: The Customer
Pandemic Skiing
Target AudienceEldora is the front range’s locals mountain. The resort boasts “Closer to you” tag line for a reason as it doesn’t require I70 traffic. It offers a simple, family friendly retro vibe experience. The Powdr team identified three key target demographics for Eldora, and note that most of the resorts guests are from the Denver/Boulder metro area.
With Eldora being acessable in under one-hour, convenince is the force behind its popularity.
IKON PASS HOLDER60% are 18-44 yo
62% non-family
38% family
91% Colorado
YOUNG & INDEPENDENTSMedian Age: 27yrs
82% Colorado, 6% NE, 4% CA, 2% MW, 4% Other
LOCAL FAMILIES Median Child Age: 12yrs / Median Adult Age: 42yrs
Boulder/Denver/Greeley 90% / Fort Collins/Loveland 10%
To better understand the thoughts and feelings of skiers/riders looking towards the 2020-21 season, I interviewed four people of varying levels of skiing & riding. I asked questions to gauge the level of anxiety and what COVID-19 precautions they found to be irritating. The levels of discomfort that users felt about skiing/riding during the pandemic ranged greatly.
“Being outside is a huge factor for me in terms of feeling safe skiing” - User Insight
User Interviews“I don’t like being around a lot of people so spread out lift lines would be my only concern”
- User Insight
To think through pain points and moments of high touch I mapped out a user journey for a typical day on the slopes.
User Journey
We created a user persona family (a user group who would more likely utilize our touch points) in order to effectively visualize our planned changes to the day-to-day experience of Eldora.
PersonaResearch Part 2: The Employee
Pandemic Customer Service
Emploeyee AudienceOnce we started to get a better idea for who our customers were and why they were coming to Eldora, we looked at the Eldora staff (F&B, rental) as this is a service design problem.
Ticketing8-14 needed daily
1 ticket window
Rentals/ski schoolRentals 10-13 needed daily
Rentals station in 1 building
Ski school 185 instructors
Ski school in 1 building and all over the mountain
Food & beverage19-30 needed daily
6 restaurant offerings located all over the mountain
Q&A with POWDRWe did not have access to current Eldora employees but did have it with POWDR staff.
What we learned:
Ticketing
A massive portion of Eldora’s revenue comes from day ticket purchases. And, in the pre-COVID era, the only way you could buy day passes was in-person.
Gear rental
Gear rental onsite is one of the things that make Eldora a charming resort. The conventional rental experience has been hands on fittings (high touch/contact) and done on paper.
Food & Beverage
On the weekends, skiers/rider want to eat and drink. It’s an essential part of the resort experience and a key revenue stream.
Key InsightsLevels of comfort for pandemic skiing
1. Reduce capacity
Reduction of resort capacity is necessary in order to create a safe environment for both guests and staff.
2. More space
Users want to avoid crowded areas; solutions will need to include increased space for guests to spread out.
3. Fears around point of sale
Activities deemed the most risky by users are conventionally done indoors like ticket purchasing and food and beverage service.
Final Recommendations
The reopening plan
Temporary Re-brandInline with Eldora’s current tagline “CLOSER TO YOU” we introduced a temporary addition, “ROOM TO PLAY”. It communicates the commitment to everyones health and safety while having fun.
Digital & Analog Experience Eldora has a website but isn't using it to its fullest potential. Wanting to make things low touch and streamlined we looked at ways Eldora could utilize its website highlighting the mobile experience. We want the user to create a reservation online, order rentals, and order food & beverage. These tasks can be done pre-visit on onsite.
PreseasonA preseason campaign aims to inform Eldora guests about the coming operational changes and also encourages guests to request their RFID cards in the mail in advance, thus limiting people at the single ticket counter. Additionally, RFID vending machines strategically placed in Boulder and Denver provide RFID cards at cost and also serve to promote Eldora. Day passes still only being available on site via vending machines.
Parking - ReservationsSocial distancing directly puts a limit on the number of visitors to Eldora and is a major part of the “ROOM TO PLAY” tagline promise. We recommend cutting down parking to 40% capacity. To accomplish this we built and recommend a reservation system be put into place.
Gear rentalsRethinking gear rentals started with moving the rental forms to the website and advocated an outside pick-up for repeat customers and an inside locker pickup for newer customers. A virtual line check-in queue upon arrival allows for renters to be spaced out. Once inside masks must be worn and six feet markers applied on the floor to help with distancing.
Lift Tickets Day PASSTo keep some of Eldora’s charm we recommend a set of 4 refurbished vending machines to be placed onsite to sell day passes. This will eliminate the current person contact in place. In addition to the machines a disinfectant whips station/card return box nearby.
Food and BeverageGrabbing something to eat and drink is just part of the resort experience. Après-ski is key to Eldora’s business model. This has been traditionally done with in-person ordering and pick-up and has a high anxiety level around it.
Phase 1 All restaurants closed. Only outside grab and go food stations available.
Phase 2 Restaurants open but no indoor seating. Extra tables added outside and tents set up to create a warming area with increased air flow.
Phase 3 Indoor seating reopens with socially distanced tables.
We recommend pickup stations being implemented onsite.
OutcomePlanning ahead
Each group presented our research and recommendations to Powdr at the end of the week. Our ideas and designs will be taken into account as Powdr plans the new season of Eldora Mountain Resort keeping the safety of guests and staff in mind.