“I just don’t know why more teenage girls don’t go to the slopes,” says Diana Tom, a teen rider from Pasadena, Calif. “There are sooo many hot guys there.”

Diana was one of many participants in a recent survey who commented upon the lack of participation among their peers. Fortunately, it’s not because of a lack of interest, as the survey found that teen girls who ski and ride view the sport every bit as cool as the guys. So why aren’t teen girls buying more lift tickets and passes, and what can resorts do about it?

Teenagers can seem like a separate species to marketers long out of high school, and can be even more of a puzzle if you don’t have a teenage daughter—or even if you do. But in the process of deciphering the comments from the teen girls participating in the survey, it was clear that they love skiing and riding for the exact same reasons that the rest of us love the sport.
Not only do they love the sport for the same reasons, they also have a burning desire to participate more frequently. Of the teen girls in the survey, 82 percent report that they intend to increase their time skiing and riding in upcoming seasons. And they’re loyal, too: two-thirds of them have a favorite mountain they return to again and again. The desire is clearly there; but even so, teen girls don’t come out to resorts in anywhere near the same numbers as boys.

THE ORIGINS OF THE GENDER GAP

The gender gap between boys and girls occurs only after they hit the teen years. As pre-teens, boys and girls are almost equally likely to ski and ride. In the teen years, ski resorts see the biggest increase in participation of any age cohort—but boys’ participation increases at twice the rate of girls.

Read the complete article at SAM, Ski Area Management magazine, by visiting THIS LINK