Horseshoe Resort, Mount St. Louis Moonstone launch the ski season this week, as the industry hopes for better times
The pandemic has been punishing
Looks like things are going to go downhill for all the right reasons this week.
Horseshoe Resort will be opening the skill hill for the 2021/22 season on Wednesday, Dec. 1.
Mount St. Louis Moonstone will be out of the gate two days later.
At the moment, neither resort is offering night skiing.
Snow Valley and Blue Mountain have yet to announce start dates.
The resorts have been blessed with snow from mother nature and good snow-making conditions.
It has been an uphill battle for ski resorts because of the pandemic.
There have been two lost March breaks, the loss of most of the lucrative Christmas season in 2020, and other pandemic-related lockdowns.
A new season dawns with capacity limits eased and vaccination rates inching closer to 90 per cent province-wide.
Kevin Nichol, President of the Ontario Snow Resorts Association, estimated the nearly two-year pandemic has cost the industry and supporting businesses about 9,500 jobs and upwards of $140 million in revenue.
“I know there are several (resorts) that just barely made it through,” said Nichols, in an interview earlier this month. “Without the assistance from the federal and provincial governments, I think the story would have been much different.”
Nichol predicted the ski industry will need three to five years to return to what was the norm pre-COVID in terms of revenue, infrastructure, and being able to facilitate planning.
feature image – Horseshoe Resort webpage