Shocking accusation, isn't it? 
This was in today's Rutland Herald:
This was in today's Rutland Herald:
Study claims ski areas inflate snowfall totals
Two Dartmouth College professors have come out with a report that accuses ski areas across the country of fudging snowfall totals. The study, "Wintertime for Deceptive Advertising?," compares snowfall reports from eastern and western resorts with totals recorded by nearby government weather stations. The report, co-authored by Eric Zitzewitz and Jonathan Zinman, concluded that ski areas inflated snowfall totals, especially on weekends, which are the more profitable days of the week.
"Overall, the resorts report an inch or more of additional fresh snow on weekends when exaggerating," according to the 29-page report. Zitzewitz said the "weekend effect" was more pronounced at ski areas with more expert terrain and at ski areas within 150 miles of a major city. "So, New England, Lake Tahoe, you see more of this weekend effect than you would in Montana," Zitzewitz said Wednesday. The report covers 2004-2008 using data from SkiReport.com and OnTheSnow.com, private archived Internet sites and government data.
The report is broken down by region and no individual resorts are mentioned. Zitzewitz said the inflated snowfall reports applied to Vermont ski areas as well. The study also found that the exaggerated snowfall reports fell sharply toward the end of the study period with the introduction of an iPhone application that allows skiers to comment and report snow conditions in real time. Zitzewitz said the application "had a real powerful disciplining effect" at resorts that had good iPhone reception.
Vermont ski industry representatives took issue with the report. Parker Riehle of the Vermont Ski Areas Association said the state's ski areas take great care in reporting precise snowfall amounts, taking measurements around the base and the summit. Riehle said snowfall can also vary from trail to trail at a particular resort. "Given the customer feedback and the peer review from competing ski areas, there's just a lot of innate pressure to get it right," said Riehle, president of the VSAA. He also said if ski areas were going to inflate snowfall it would make more sense to do that during the week "when you're trying to create and generate buzz and excitement for the coming weekend." He said exaggerating snowfall on the weekend doesn't make sense because skiers and riders are already on the mountain or planning to come. Riehle also criticized the report because it throws together all eastern resorts. He added that there can be significant differences in snowfall between what is reported by resorts and weather stations.
The report used data from weather stations that on average were 26 miles from resorts in the East and 160 feet below the summit. Asked whether that distance between a weather station and a resort could explain a difference in reporting totals, Zitzewitz said the difference shouldn't be systematic, especially since there are on average an equal number of weather stations in all directions. "But more importantly, to the extent there is a systematic difference, it shouldn't be any larger on the weekend," he said in a subsequent e-mail. The study found that while deceiving skiers can result in lost business, Zitzewitz and Zinman noted that on "a one-shot basis" switching resorts even between "neighboring resorts" can be more trouble than it's worth. "On a longer-term basis, some consumers may find it costly to coordinate with peers on alternative destinations or to learn how to navigate the terrain and ancillary services (parking, rentals, dining, lodging) of a new mountain," the report said.
At Killington Resort, the largest resort in the East, spokesman Tom Horrocks said fudging snowfall totals just doesn't happen. "In the five years I have been here, I can fully state 100 percent that we have never exaggerated our snow totals at any time,' Horrocks said. "It's unethical, and at the end of the day you have to answer to the guests on the other side of the ticket window.
Bruce Schmidt, vice president and general manager of Okemo Mountain Resort, said the resort measures snowfall as accurately as possible. "There are a number of mountain-environment variables like elevation, wind blow and weather, that we have to factor into calculations, but we monitor snow depths consistently at numerous locations around the resort," Schmidt said in an e-mail.
Although the ski areas took issue with the report, Killington's Horrocks said in the past some resorts may have inflated snowfall totals but not any longer. "Maybe there was 10 years ago but in the past five or 10 years, no," he said.
Horrocks said Killington has installed several live Web cams so skiers and riders can "see what the conditions are."
