SUMMIT COUNTY — Despite an avalanche of gloomy economic news, ski-industry experts are still optimistic about the upcoming season, provided there’s plenty of powder.
  Looking at trends for the past 19 years, RRC Associates president Nolan Rosall said statistics show that skier and snowboard visits have been more dom­inated by snow quality, temperatures and timing of snowfall than by econom­ic factors or consumer confidence.
  Rosall’s Boulder-based research firm plotted four lines on a graph, overlaying recessionary periods with a national snowfall index, a con­sumer- confidence measure and skier­visit numbers.
  The resulting picture suggests that, even when times are tough, skier vis­its can stay high in good snow years. The textbook case is the winter of 1981-1982, when skier visits soared to record levels despite a deep recession. Poor snow this winter, however, could lead to a double whammy for ski resorts.
  “It’s easy for people to cancel plans for a ski vacation if the snow and the economy are bad,” Rosall said. Poor snow becomes the scapegoat for can­celing a ski trip, he said.
  This season will represent a unique test in how effective the industry has been in creating dedicated partici­pants, he said. The increasingly unstable world economy reinforces the need to build a strong domestic-visitation base, he added.
  The only big question is whether the current economic decline is in the same ballpark with past dips — or whether the current credit crisis and stock-market roller-coaster ride will lead to unprecedented economic territory. Rosall said that, based on tangi­ble measures like unemployment figures and stock-market values, the current economic situation is “with­in the realm of other recessions.”
  The statistics released late last week in a special report for the National Ski Areas Association uses a consumer confidence yard­stick as measure of the economy.
  “It’s a psychological measure,” Rosall said. “But we can make a valid comparison.”
  Breckenridge Ski Area vice pres­ident and chief operating officer Lucy Kay said the RRC report would help her plan for the upcoming season.
  “We’re optimistic that people are still going to want to go on vacation, and that they will find a way,” Kay said.
  Flexibility to respond to short­term changes, both in the economy and the weather, is the key to a suc­cessful season, she added.
  As to whether the current reces­sion is in line with past economic cycles, Kay said that, in her person­al opinion, it’s too early to tell.
  “My sense is, people are going to sit tight until the election. It’s a wait-and-see attitude,” she said.
  The economic news will proba­bly drive some changes in visita­tion, Rosall said. Skiers are less likely to take longer multi-day trips, instead looking for close-to-home options. That could affect some of the more remote resorts that rely on long-stay destination visits, he said. “You do get shifts in where peo­ple ski,” he said.
  That holds true for international visits, a strength of the Colorado ski industry in recent years. The same factors, economics and weather, are in play.
  A collapse of the euro, the com­mon European currency, could have dramatic impacts, he said.
  Overall, the picture for interna­tional visits is not quite as advanta­geous as in previous seasons, Rosall said.
  The short-term economic ques­tion marks highlight the need for the industry to take a long view of growth, and underlines the impor­tance of continued investment in providing a quality vacation prod­uct, he concluded.