Press Release:
6.9% of American Participate In Snow Sports and Burn 332 Million Calories
WASHINGTON, DC (July 27, 2012) – SnowSports Industries America (SIA) released the comprehensive 2012 SIA Snow Sports Participation Report today detailing snow sports participation trends, demographic profiles, and major differences between core and casual participants.
The Report covers alpine, telemark, park and pipe (freestyle), snowboarder, cross country skiing, and snowshoe enthusiasts. SIA worked with their partners at the Physical Activity Council to survey more than 38,500 American households regarding their sports and leisure activities.
This season, a lack of snow inhibited participation in all categories, but snowshoeing and telemark skiing. Participation suffered with a reduced number of participants, as well as, the number of days participating. Overall, snow sports participation fell from 21M to 19.8M.
An additional 8.8M people said they considered themselves skiers or snowboarders, but have not participated in the last two seasons, most often due to time constraints. Alpine ski participation fell 11% to 10.2M, snowboarding participation declined 8% to 7.6M and cross country skiing participation fell 5% to 4.3M participants.
The 2012 Snow Sports Participation Report uncovered some unique facts about snow sports participation habits including:
-6.9% of the total U.S. population (+6 years old) participates in at least one snow sport discipline.
-Alpine skiers (44%) and snowboarders (31%) make-up three-fourths of all participants.
-Fifty-six percent (56%) of the alpine skiers are concentrated in the following ten states: CA, TX, NY, CO, PA, MI, IL, NJ, WA, and MA.
-Sixty percent (60%) of snowboarders are concentrated in the following ten states: CA, NY, IL, PA, NJ, WA, MI, CO, WI, and VA.
-High-income earners account for large segments of participants with 50% of alpine skiers and
-37% of snowboarders respectively having annual incomes of $100,000 or more.
-Snow sports are becoming more diverse; minority ethnic groups make up over twenty-five percent (25%) of all participants.
Last season, 10.2M skiers, 7.6M snowboarders, 4.3M cross country skiers and 4.1M snowshoe participants spent about 29,000 hours participating in one or more of the snow sports discipline.
One of several interesting findings the Participation Report revealed, was that during the 2011/2012 winter season 19.8M ski, snowboard and snowshoe participants burned a total of 332,386,750 calories sliding on snow — enough activity to burn off about 475,000 cheeseburgers or 2.2M beers or 45,211 servings of french fries or 1.1M slices of pepperoni pizza.
The 2012 Snow Sports Participation Report is free to SIA Members and $899 for non-members. To get your copy of the report, or for more information about SIA Research please contact Kelly Davis, SIA’s Director of Research, at 703.506.4224 or email at KDavis@snowsports.org.
About SIA
SnowSports Industries America (SIA) is the national not-for-profit, North American member-owned, trade association representing suppliers and service providers of snow sports products with constituents in the retailer, rep and resort communities. Established in 1954, SIA annually produces the SIA Snow Show, the largest snow sports industry trade show, on-snow demo and networking environment globally, while delivering invaluable data/research reports including the Snow Sports Market Intelligence Report, SnowSports RetailTRAKTM and Executive Market Summary.
SIA also produces a Supplier Show at the SIA Snow Show called Sourcing Snow, learn more at siasnowshow.com/sourcing. SIA helps grow the industry with consumer initiatives and websites, snowlink.com and wintertrails.org, marketing products, services and programs helping our Members operate more efficiently, bring their products to market and increase participation in snow sports. For more information, check out snowsports.org. SnowSports Industries America, 8377-B Greensboro Drive, McLean, VA 22102-3587 (Washington, DC area). Phone: 703.556.9020, Fax: 703.821.8276, Email: SIAmail@snowsports.org.
