This year, what's off the Utah ski slopes will count

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Perched on a hillside off the entrance road to The Canyons Resort, the Dakota Mountain Lodge is the state's first Waldorf Astoria hotel. The luxury brand name, and the hotel's connection to the Hilton organization, is expected to help attract more well-heeled vacationers to the Park City area.

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The physical face of Utah's ski industry has changed little heading into this second winter of the deep downturn.

Solitude has replaced a lift. Sundance is adding lights for night skiing. That's about it.

But off the slopes, two developments are viewed as harbingers of long-term benefits, even if their immediate impacts might be limited in these tough economic times:

1) This will be the first ski season in which Park City has two new upscale hotels whose brand names extend their appeal to crowds of loyal, well-heeled patrons. Dakota Mountain Lodge, a Waldorf Astoria hotel within the Hilton empire, opened this summer at The Canyons Resort. A Dec. 4 grand opening is scheduled for the St. Regis Deer Crest at Deer

With his snowcat anchored to the top of the mountain, Snowbird grooming supervisor Kevin O'Donnell checked a snowmaking gun on the Regulator Johnson run off Hidden Peak. Since the last week of October, whenever temperatures have been cold enough, Snowbird's 30 snowmaking guns have been building a base for the ski season to begin. (Jim Urquhart / The Salt Lake Tribune)

2) Everyone involved with the industry, from restaurant personnel and hotel front-desk clerks to Ski Utah's marketing people, will be spared the need to explain to incredulous listeners Utah's private club liquor law, which was largely abolished.

For them, it exemplifies that silence is golden.

"It's just so nice not having to explain the private membership concept," said Bill Malone, executive director of the Park City Chamber Bureau, referring to fees that the law required patrons to pay before they could get a drink. "It's a couple of sentences that now disappear off our explanation of things, part of a conversation that doesn't have to occur anymore."

Most Utah resorts, or private facilities

At The Canyons Resort outside Park City, glass partitions that separated diners from alcoholic beverages -- the so-called Zion Curtains -- were removed from Doc's and Smokies' Bar & Grill. Brighton has added ID scanners at the door of Molly Greens, whose status has changed from private club to social club.

Remodeling was not required, but Park City Mountain Resort officials have high expectations for the business that will be gained at Legends Bar and Grill, which last winter had both a restaurant and a private club.

"Guests under 21 or 'nonmembers' were able to dine in the restaurant but they were not allowed in the private club portion," said resort spokeswoman Meisha Lawson. "With the change, guests of all ages are allowed in the entire restaurant.

"This will allow Legends staff to better serve guests as the restaurant tends to get very busy with families over the course of the season. We are looking forward to minimizing guests' wait time at Legends due to the change."

Although several resort representatives said the liquor law changes have had no discernible effects on their operations, they agreed that the revisions are image boosters.

"The new laws may help to break down awkward perceptions of out-of-state visitors," said Snowbasin marketing director Jodi Holmgren.

Added Todd Burnette, vice president of marketing at The Canyons: "We realize negative stereotypes take a considerable length of time to establish themselves. Likewise, it will take some period of time for the misperceptions about Utah liquor laws to dissipate.

"We expect that, upon arrival at The Canyons, our guests will be pleasantly surprised when they no longer have to worry about private club memberships. The perceived inability to get an alcoholic drink will soon be a distant memory."

That's important for business, said chamber leader Malone. Although "our core customers who have been here many times understood the private clubs and it wasn't a huge issue to them, it was the people who had never been here before who could use it as an excuse not to come."

And in this kind of economic environment -- with wicked competition from other resorts, communities and states scrambling to survive -- every edge is critical.

Which is why Julie Wilson, Deer Valley Resort's director of food and beverage, contends the Legislature still must refine the definitions of social clubs and restaurants so that they mesh more closely.

"Although it's great for Utah and it's reputation that the guest doesn't have to join a club anymore," she said, "the new laws make it even more confusing for a guest to figure out why they can start drinking at 10 a.m. in some restaurants but not until noon in others. And why in some you have to order something to eat, but in others you don't. We would really love to have all the liquor laws consistent."

Consistency, in another sense, figures into the appeal of the Dakota Mountain Lodge and the St. Regis Deer Crest hotel. Their associations with big-time brands give clients a good idea of what to anticipate if they travel to the Park City area for a vacation, Malone said, an expectation that doesn't run quite as deeply with locally owned properties -- no matter how good their product is.

"These new properties fill the entire spectrum of what we have to offer, from economy to luxury," he said. "It's not that we're short on luxury. Stein Eriksen's and Sky Lodge are great. But what this adds is branded luxury. If I'm from somewhere else, I might not know Sky Lodge. But I know Waldorf Astoria. I know St. Regis. It's a new product for us because it's branded on an international scale."

Malone is hopeful the well-established brand names will help both properties survive openings in the most turbulent economic times since the Great Depression.

In doing so, he also hopes Utah will be exposed to customers who otherwise might not have reason to come here.

"The Dakota, for instance, is a Hilton product. We've been told we can expect to see a lot of Hilton HHonors program point usage of that property," Malone said. "Hilton doesn't have a lot of ski properties. So having the Dakota could attract a clientele that will redeem those points to use our ski product."

As always, however, this season's prospects for financial success will ride largely on one uncontrollable (but pretty consistent) factor -- snow.

Get it, people will come. Don't, they won't.

Malone is encouraging Park City boosters, all Utahns really, to spread the word through social media whenever the state gets hit with snow.

"Everyone in the market is offering deals this year, so it doesn't really matter where you are. Snow will trump everything," he said.

"It's important that everybody get the message out when the snowstorms arrive. That's a crucial part of getting people to get on the phone or online to book a trip. Snow will be the big motivator."

mikeg@sltrib.com