Mount Hood Meadows Ski Resort
Providing an interactive experience for site visitors
Website: http://www.skihood.com
Sitecore Office: Sitecore USA Headquarters
Summary
Working with Sitecore partner, ISITE Design, this ski resort has achieved an effective balance between vibrant design, robust content strategy and operational site improvements.
“The Sitecore CMS provided ISITE and Mt. Hood Meadows with a flexible development framework to create a robust and engaging website and it gives the resort's team a tool they can easily work with to manage the site.”
-Paul Williams, CEO and President, ISITE Design
Challenge
The Mt. Hood Meadows ski resort website connects with and provides resources to a diverse customer base, from die-hard skiers and snowboarders to day trippers. This includes using the web to help customers purchase passes, find up-to-the-minute conditions on the mountain, and promote online engagement and dialogue between the resort and its guests.
The goals of a 2009 redesign and redevelopment included providing an effective balance between a vibrant design, robust content strategy and operational site improvements. Mt. Hood needed to build a technical foundation that could scale to support these and other goals, such as complex e-commerce scenarios (e.g. group ticket sales). In the end, Mt Hood’s web presence needed to blend inspiring imagery, relevant and timely information and resources, and functional website tools that engaged customers and pulled them back to the mountain again and again.
Solution
Working with Sitecore partner, full-service interactive agency ISITE Design based in Portland, Oregon, Sitecore was chosen as the CMS to help support the resort’s online goals. The website re-launch affirms Mt. Hood Meadows’s status as a premier travel and ski destination in the Pacific Northwest. The launch, coming just before the 2009-2010 ski season, also had an immediate positive impact on ticket sales and customer engagement.
Result
“Mt. Hood Meadows had an ambitious set of site requirements. They wanted a great visual design, an elegant user experience for array of visitors, new functionality like user-contributed photos and videos, and a scalable technical platform that fully supports their business on the web, all delivered in under 4 months” said Paul Williams, CEO and President, ISITE Design. “The Sitecore CMS provided ISITE and Mt. Hood Meadows with a flexible development framework to create a robust and engaging website and it gives the resort’s team a tool they can easily work with to manage the site.”
Some customizations to the site include:
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Custom Development of a Shopping Cart: ISITE Design created a custom shopping cart to work in Sitecore based on Mt. Hood Meadows’ unique purchasing requirements. This included purchasing of group tickets, and real-time inventory of seats remaining on their bus passes. To accomplish this, a custom SQL database was created to pull from a Sitecore database where all the products and inventory are stored. A sync occurs between Sitecore and Mt. Hood Meadows resort management system, RTP , and updates are made when new products are released or new price points are added. The user experience is also designed to cross-sell and up-sell rental packages, lockers, lessons, and a carbon footprint offset promotion.
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Custom Blog: Before the redesign, Mt. Hood Meadows was using a third-party blog tool. ISITE Design created a custom blog using Sitecore that was tailored to their exact requirements.
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Park-and-Ride and Consecutive Weeks Lessons Programs: Park-and-Ride and lessons were previously handled by third-party event organizers who would collect guests’ payment and contact information, and then export the information to Mt. Hood Meadows. The resort wanted to have more control over these purchases with the goal of creating a stronger relationship with the end customer, and being able to market directly to them. Sitecore enables this by connecting with Mt. Hood Meadow’s inventory database to highlight for guests when a program is full or no seats remain, as well as allows for same-day or advance purchase. Sitecore also allows the site administrators to run an export of guest information and print-off rosters for lessons.