Vermont Ski Areas Celebrate Best Season Since 2001

skierAt the Vermont Ski Areas Association (VSAA) annual meeting at Stowe Mountain Resort, the state’s resorts celebrated the best season since 2001 with 4,513,041 skier & rider visits, up 16 percent over last year. This year also marks the second-best season on record since VSAA began collecting resort data in 1992. 

Nationally, VSAA says, skier and rider visits had the biggest one-year leap in 30 years, with the Northeast posting the biggest gains in the country. The season tally once again ranks Vermont number one in the East and third nationwide for skiing and riding.

“The 2012-13 season stands as a remarkable rebound from the prior year with record early openings thanks to our 80 percent snowmaking coverage, perfectly timed snow for the holidays, blizzard snowfall that buried our core markets’ backyards and an epic March that we haven’t seen in years,” said VSAA President Parker Riehle

“In addition, the phenomenal winter season meant over $170 million in revenues for the state’s tourism-dependent economy from the rooms and meals and sales taxes, surpassing pre-recession levels for the first time. The month of March was truly astounding, accounting for a 14 percent increase in the rooms and meals tax revenue over the previous year and providing a critical boost to revenues that enabled the legislature to take numerous tax increase proposals off the table," Riehle said.

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