Welcome to another edition of Snow Business in Lillehammer.
Here we have the guys who went to visit the site. To my left, Lea, Nacho, Leonie, and Luca.
Four of the finest who enjoyed a day out at Skeikampen, which is about 45 minutes north of Lillehammer. It’s located on a high mountain plateau, with a large escarpment mountain that defines its landscape. There’s a big lift going all the way to the top, lots of cabins around, and an old hotel that is part of the Thon hotel chain.
When we arrived there, we visited the hotel and met with the hotel manager.
What did she have to say?
Leo:
She has been the manager for two years. Before, the hotel operated year-round, but now it only has two seasons because climate change has altered the snow conditions. Snow arrives later and does not stay as long, meaning hotel occupancy has declined compared to before.
Simon:
Yes, they are certainly approaching the end of winter, but what’s interesting is that they don’t have much capacity for artificial snow production due to their position on the mountain plateau.
Simon:
So, how is occupancy?
Nacho:
This year, occupancy has dropped by 56%.
We have data from January and February. She talked about this, mentioning that they usually don’t see higher occupancy and that they are struggling. Maybe it’s due to climate change, but it’s uncertain whether it’s snow conditions or another factor.
She also said that groups tend to arrive in mid-November, while individual visitors come more towards the end of the year.
Simon:
Yes, it’s strange. Groups start coming earlier, so they open sooner, while individuals tend to arrive later, just before the year ends.
So, they’ve moved from being a four-season hotel to a two-season one. But when I counted the weeks, it seemed more like they were closed for about six weeks between winter and summer, and nearly four weeks between summer and winter. They weren’t open all year.
That was probably the main issue.
Did she say anything else?
Nacho:
Yes, she talked a lot about renovations because the hotel is quite old, and major changes are needed. She has plans for renovations.
For example, they want to add kitchenettes in the rooms because one of the problems they identified is that people prefer staying in cabins. Visitors like having their own space where they can drive in, cook their own meals, and enjoy privacy.
Where do these visitors come from?
Nacho:
They come from various countries, but they prefer to drive to the cabins and have their own space.
Simon:
So, are they mostly from Nordic nations or other nearby countries?
Nacho:
Yes, like Sweden and Germany.
Simon:
Maybe even Northern Germany. Yes, they often arrive with their cars packed with groceries from their home country, bringing food they are familiar with.
Over the last 30 years, there has been a trend where people prefer having a cabin equipped with all the necessary facilities, allowing them to cook and relax. They want the flexibility to ski whenever they want, rather than following a fixed hotel schedule.
Nacho:
They have also tried organizing different types of events, but those haven’t been very successful.
She mentioned conferences, most of which happen in January, but they are not very popular right now. They are looking for new markets, and that’s what she said: they need a new concept.
Leo:
Yes, the same thing applies to conferences. The trend now is for events to be held closer to airports, in hotels, instead of remote locations like this one.
Yes, maybe they should try targeting universities or study groups, but it’s not very popular yet.
Simon:
So, they have changed, not because they wanted to, but because the behavior of conference groups has shifted. Normally, these groups stay near airports, so places like this struggle to attract them. This part of the business has been halved for them.
And it’s interesting, as you mentioned, that they are now looking at different groups, such as university students or school groups, but those are not premium customers. These visitors typically look for budget-friendly options.
So, you can see that the market is changing, or rather, they are trying to adapt to fill the hotel occupancy gaps.
One thing we haven’t mentioned is that Thon Hotels owns about 90 properties, but only two of them are located outside major cities, including this one.
So, they are very much an urban hotel chain, and you’d expect them to promote their mountain resort to customers who already use their city hotels.
But we got the impression that they were struggling and needed a new concept.
She shared some ideas with us.
Nacho:
Yes, she mentioned that people lack things to do when there’s no snow. With changing temperatures, it’s harder to rely on consistent snow.
So, she talked about adding attractions like mini-golf, bowling, and other entertainment options inside the hotel.
They want to offer more activities beyond snow-based tourism.
Simon:
Yes, I mean, there are plenty of people who might not even be interested in winter sports but would still like to visit the mountains for fresh air, hiking, and the views.
But there are also days when visitors want indoor activities.
And on days with poor snow conditions, people need alternatives.
When we visited Beitostolen, we saw a pub filled with traditional games in a modern setting. When the snow was bad, people had something to do.
We also talked about the winter market.
Is there a sense of decline, or are they simply tired and looking for a new concept and new markets? And to keep things running, they rely on the winter tourism market.
What does that involve?
Lea:
During winter, bus tour groups arrive, mainly from Germany and Poland.
The problem with these groups is that the hotel operates on a very thin margin because they require more staff, especially housekeeping.
Also, many groups cancel at the last minute, making it difficult to plan.
Simon:
Yeah in summer, many mountain hotels compete fiercely for the bus tour market, which is very common here.
These tourists often drive from other Nordic countries or even further away.
When the tour arrives at the hotel, they stay for just one night.
This means a massive turnover—cleaning, washing, and preparing for the next group arriving in the late afternoon for dinner and breakfast before leaving again.
It’s like Groundhog Day, but with very tight profit margins because so many hotels are chasing this business to fill their beds.
What about staffing challenges?
Lea:
Because the hotel isn’t open year-round, it’s hard to find staff.
And in general, people don’t want to work in hospitality anymore.
Who exactly?
Leo:
Young people, like us.
That’s why they try different solutions. For example, they hire Danish students in winter and offer accommodation to make it more attractive.
That way, they can rotate their staff.
In winter, they don’t recruit until December, and before then, they try to secure 10 employees.
Simon:
There is certainly a sense that fewer young people are entering the hospitality industry.
Hotel managers have to look further afield, and Danish is often the common language.
Denmark has long been a key market for Norwegian mountain resorts, so hiring Danes for seasonal hospitality jobs makes sense.
After we finish with the hotel manager, we had the lady from the destination Skeikampen.
What does she what was her job?
Luca:
She was um the marketing manager. From the destination Skeikampen. And she told us about, that there are two companies that are running the destination Skeikampen, and they didn't work well together in the past and um they want to work better together in the future and she told us about, yeah, some marketing channels like Facebook.
With Facebook, for example, they announce important information around or about the destination. They also want to use Snapchat at some point for behind the scenes.
And what kind of events were they doing there?
Nacho:
There are trying like to be bigger and events, but they have been doing like festivals. They also did junior rational championships there, and they were like quite big for like, what they are used to do.
And they also like cinema stuff there. So, I think they are doing more or less good with the things they have to do in events, but they want to be bigger in events, so I think they are doing quite good in that job.
On social media they have a lot of challenges on Instagram. They have more than 12.000 followers and it's quite nice for a small destination, like Skeikampen.
And they are updating the platforms and they have I think in the marketing stuff, they are doing right, yeah.
Simon:
Yeah definitely appeared like a string of small events that arguably were definitely aimed at the cabin owners. For the most part it was not always like this.
And they were offered around the year. That was an interesting thing.
I mean, the little backstory there is that the staff situation definitely fits in with this whole community destination in terms of that model until Thun hotel bought the mountain, a decade or so back, which are all the lifts, ski school and ski rental.
And then they used to have a DMO destination management company and then that was dissolved because Skeikampen/Thun Hotel were a hotel now they owned a mountain, and they took over the marketing of them of their parts and all the other little tourist actors they didn’t longer have a channel to market from.
And so, they initially started this company called Skeikampen plus, which did the marketing for the destination, looking after the booking for cabin owners and the cleaning of cabins as well, and then maintenance of trails and cross-country ski trails in the winter.
All these kinds of things. But I think they found out that having two separate entities, there wasn't a single message and in the last year, only in the last year, they've come together to build and have a DMO again.
Destination Skeikampen focuses on the marketing of the destination for everyone and all the tour of actors there. And of course, one of the contributors to that is that people who are selling land and cabins because they're still landing up there to uh plenty of land up there to develop, which is further and further away from the kind of the hope of it.
And then the last person we spoke to was Morgan from the ski school and ski rental.
And I know some of you have seen the video we made too in the pandemic, but uh what did he have to tell us about the destination?
Leo:
In winter, he's renting skis and now so there's a ski cooperation. And in summer the main program is mountain biking and maybe some guided hiking, but they are most people used to go hiking themselves right now. And yeah, he tries to keep a big variety of skis and like, yeah, offers of um ski schooling for example telemark, but also normal skiing snowboarding because especially like, uh, maybe the Norwegians coming, they were to try different styles and not just the classic. And uh yeah, they didn't really notice a change from past COVID to COVID and now is it like, yeah, the cabin owners they come and go and even though COVID was.
Simon:
I would mention the development that the E6 from Oslo to Lillehammer has increased the frequency of cabin owners to come to the mountains. and all the destinations where we visit on this course, that that definitely has a serious upticking the number of visits these owners would have to in the destination and it's same at I company.

But I got the impression from Morgan they he was relying heavily on the cabin owners for a market, um where there of course there's lots of tourists here in week seven and week eight. They're classic winter holidays in in the late February early March.

And yet he talked about that they were looking for um different tour operators to come to give us bigger groups. And he talked about that. He missed them when they went. They they uh after and they weren't picked up again after COVID until recently. And there seems to be a plan. I got the sensors a bit of energy about the place with this. so much so that they're going to redevelop a a restaurant on the mountain to increase its capacity at tenfold.

So this was a significant because arguably in the destination, there hasn't been that much investment in terms of the attraction of the tourism offer for some time.

Some of you got out skiing. How was that?

Luca:
Great. It's um you know, the destination Skeikampen is um yeah, uh sweet uh ski resort. um you have nice views, while you are skiing, literally everywhere. Everywhere. um Morgan mentioned that, um, yeah, on the front face of the mountain, Skeikampen, um, yeah, it's prepared with uh slopes and on the back side, there's um a lot of space for free riding, free skiing. Yeah, uh it's um a great destination for um cross country skiing as well. um And when we were there, it was not crowded at all, so you um yeah, it could just ski on your own and yeah, have a good time.

Simon:
Yeah, we definitely in that period when we went there, between winter holidays and Easter, where many destinations require.

However, I would say it was very quiet when we were there and I think you guys are very lucky the sun came out and you got to see it as best as it can be. No wind. because it's quite high up, almost above most of the destinations above the tree line. So it is really exposed. um and then on the backside, when we get snow, locally, um it is one of the best destinations for powder. uh plenty of cliffs that jump off on that kind of stuff.

Yeah, and what is also cool about the destination, because it's so high, one of the fascinating things about skiing noise, often above the tree line on top of the mountain plateau, to you on days like when we visited, you can see for miles, you know, see, and and Skeikampen looks totally into Westgausdal and and Yottenheim beyond, so you get this as sense that you're amongst the mountains, and even when your cross country skiing, whereas when you go in the Alps, you often on the valley floor, where the mountain almost encroaching on top of you, though it is a classic combination offer of a ski product where there's cross country skiing and Alpine skiing.

But I mean, you called it a resort I'll be more like it's a ski hill. It's it's small Yeah, it has a reasonable amount of terrain, but it's not always accessible because they're not running all the less all the time. And they're trying to work out a solution for the backside in terms of ensuring there's enough snow because they can't make snow out there at the moment.

So, it leads us to the final part then. What would you recommend they do there? putting you on the spot now?

Nacho:
I mean if there is like good snow or the skiing. It's also a really good destination for families to go because, like fathers they can go cross country ski and mothers with the kids, they can go alpine or the other way.

So, it's like a quite good destination to have like all the snow activities at the same time. But yeah, with snow is like really good destination, but I don't see like lot of offer without, the snow, so it will be a little bit hard to not do because in wintertime with no snow, I think it's really difficult to bike because there is no snow, but there is like icy roads and it's not bad. If you don't have like quite a good level, snow that easy, but there in summer is like quite destination for going like one week or four days, go there with the family, rent the bikes and do the trails, with this sound. really good sound up there.

Anybody got anything else to say about what you think they need?

Leo:
I mean, I would say they, they should keep focus on families and keep the resort quiet as this, because that's what the charme was for me. but maybe to get some more people to go there, yeah. I mean, they're trying to do some more marketing, so they just keep going. I mean, I just started with this development of using Instagram, Snapchat and all that stuff. and also merging this two websites and I think once this is implemented better than maybe the families will come by themselves, and then it's gonna be yeah, I think it could be like a really nice family resort for families coming in, being there for one week, skiing, cross country skiing, or even just going for a walk or sit in the sun when the weather is great as like we had.

And yeah, more like a not like a party resort or like um destination, I wouldn't market it like this. Maybe if there's the family things won´t work out, they could look into more like, uh university groups or also of student groups, uh like schools, so they could come for a few days because then the resort isn't that big, it's it's nice to see for a few days and then they can head off again and it would be also like if it's the same school coming every year so they would have like stable relationships maybe, this will be a nice thing to look into. Yeah.

Anything else?

Simon:
I would wonder whether they would, she talked about knocking the hotel down and rebuilding it. My thoughts probably maybe just build a new hotel somewhere else that had a better ski and ski out.

Yeah, that uh and then have the tour groups and they can more value product value based customers in the old hotel, that is, you know, uh in need of a um due to it being a little tired, in need of a an upgrade. But yeah, but overall, I can go all it has all the charme there. of uh and all the possibilities. But of course it's in the shadow of Alpenco's uh Hafjell and Kvitfjell, so it's not always that easy. Yeah.

Okay. Well, thank you very much for joining us. That is another edition of snow Business in Lillehammer.