Northstar at Tahoe Ski Resort (California, USA)Mount Ruapehu (New Zealand)
New Zealand's largest ski company, Ruapehu Alpine Lifts wanted a new web site. Something different. They wanted video and didn't want to rely on text and images.
With Resorts Interactive's software and design input from Cabbage Tree Creative, a web site was created which had 30% more user sessions over any other previous season. This lead to Ruapehu's ski areas receiving record breaking visitor numbers to the resorts during an average snow season.
Early 2006, Tahoe ski resort Northstar at Tahoe, identified that online customer interactivity needed to be stronger. The fact that more people use their web site than actually visit the ski resort made it perfectly clear, more interactivity with potential customers online would translate to more walk up customers at the ski resort. Northstar chose Resorts Interactive's suite of out-of-the box video and interactive tools to do this.
They decided to provide its online customers with a "virtually there" experience, by using interactive trail maps and video created by both the marketing department and Northstar customers. Allowing users to upload video directly to their web site was identified as a critical element in making more Northstar at Tahoe skiers and boarders feel attached to the resort, and essentially part of the brand. The marketing team created the "Video Snack" which appeared daily on the home page. They sent out enthusiastic snow reporters, equipped with a high quality mobile video phone and produced what was voted the most popular item on Northstar's web site. Software provided by Resorts Interactive (MVP Video on Demand with Device Uploads) allowed them to film and send video from a mobile phone to their website all within a matter of minutes. The Northstar Interactive Trail Map shows stunning 360° panoramas, videos of skiers and boarders from around the resort, live snow report feeds, weather forecasts, webcams, video snow report, RSS feeds and other essential items such as live grooming and snowmaking, shopping facilities and more. The Trail Map was extremely popular with click-thru rates, stats showed it as the second most viewed item on the Northstar web site after the home page.... wow! Content was also shared via mobile phones. Videos, webcams and live snow report data were viewed by Northstar customers on their mobile devices using 2 Mobile. Travel and Tourism Awards Resorts Interactive's MVP Assets™ and vicoMap™ proved to play a major role in Northstar at Tahoe's success (1st place) at the California Travel and Tourism Awards in Sacramento California, March 2007. View California brand awards page here.
In a country with relatively low broadband penetration, mtruapehu.com transferred an impressive 0.78 Terabytes of video over the course of the winter season. This huge amount of data, unfathomable to most web site providers was handled seamlessly by Resorts Interactive's Server Network.
"Before Resorts Interactive made MVP Assets and vicoMap, we just couldn't have had a web site like this. The complex software requirements and data charges were simply not justifiable. We're going to win an award with this web site, I can feel it" - Mike Smith, Marketing Manager, RAL mtruapehu.com |