Winter wonderland: White Mountains, North Country reporting a rise in season visitors

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As Paula Kinney was driving down Berlin’s downtown recently, she was delighted to see a sight she hadn’t spotted often in the last couple of years: a large line of snowmobilers driving through town on Mason Street.

“They were on the Connector Trail, which helps bring the snowmobilers into our city so they can go out to eat and get gas,” Kinney, executive director of the Androscoggin Valley Chamber of Commerce, said last Friday.

“When I saw that whole group crossing, I’m like, ‘Holy (expletive).’ I bet if I ride through Gorham tomorrow, there’s going to be a lot. I heard the Town and Country (Inn)’s got a lot full right now of trailers coming in.”

Kinney’s reaction might have confused locals even just a decade ago, though, in recent times, New Hampshire’s North Country and White Mountains regions have become more acclimated to winters characterized by lighter snow, rainier days and higher temperatures.

This year, tourism officials and owners of regional attractions say they’ve gotten a reprieve as consistent low-degree climates and more snowfall have created some of the best conditions in a decade for seasonal visitors seeking activities like skiing, snowboarding, tubing and off-road vehicle riding.

Skiing destinations around the state received up to 20 inches of snow in the first nine days of February, according to a report from trade association Ski New Hampshire, which represents more than 30 ski areas. Only last weekend did the state see temperatures rise above freezing at length for the first time in weeks.

“The last couple of years have been challenging as the winters have been reflective of climate change, honestly where we’ve seen winters starting later,” Ski NH President Jessyca Keeler told NH Business Review in a phone call. “Even this year started off that way, so we’re really happy that it turned around. We’re seeing it take longer to get colder on the front end, and lots of times, we’ve seen it get warmer on the back end.”

Keeler said where snowmaking had to fill in gaps last year, natural snow has taken its place again in January and February. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported the 2023-24 winter as the state’s warmest on record.

“I think it’s been really since the 2014-15 season that we’ve seen it be this cold and snowy, so we’re rejoicing,” she said.

Corinne Rober is also celebrating. She and her husband, Steve Baillargeon, co-own Pittsburg, NH-based snowmobile and all-terrain vehicle rental service Bear Rock Adventures, which they founded together in 2013.

The previous winter was Bear Rock’s shortest in its 12-year history, with its leadership worried it was a cycle of shrinking seasons, but Rober says this winter has been a welcome change.

“Last year we weren’t able to open trails until like Jan. 11, and we had to close down the very beginning of March because snow couldn’t hold up,” she said. “This year, we were able to open right after Christmas, and I think we certainly aren’t closing at the beginning of March.”

She said revenues in every part of the company — rentals, lodging and retail — are all up. As of Feb. 21, the company was averaging a 15% increase in profits, but Rober was hopeful that Bear Rock would average a 35% to 40% increase over the next month.

It’s a stark difference from the 2023-24 winter, when Bear Rock couldn’t keep all its trails open for the full season due to snowmelt from persistent rainfall. So far this year, they’ve all been available to snowmobilers and ATV drivers, and the business is finding most if not all of its fleet of 47 snowmobiles regularly rented every weekend.

“We’re going to come out of the season feeling much more comfortable than we did last year,” Rober said.

For the hospitality industry, which includes dining and lodging, it’s a bit too soon to get a full picture of how this winter compares to previous ones. State and regional leaders are optimistic, despite snowstorms making travel from lodging sometimes difficult, which Mike Somers feels can impact economic figures.

Somers, the president and CEO of the New Hampshire Lodging and Restaurant Association, said it’s been a mixed bag for inns and hotels.

“Our lodging numbers are just kind of flat — we don’t have February numbers yet because we have to close out the month before we see those,” he said. “December was pretty decent for hospitality specifically, and January has been kind of flat.”

He reported that business in December was three percentage points higher than in 2023, and that in January, it was “up slightly a third of a point over last year.”

On the short-term rentals end of the sector, things couldn’t be better for Alex Foti, president and co-founder of Bretton Woods Vacations, which manages accommodations for around 124 host-owned properties in the White Mountains area.

It was uncertain at first, as visitors to Foti’s managed properties trickled in slowly in December, which he speculates was linked to drought and fire conditions in Connecticut and Massachusetts around then.

“There seems to be an ‘in my backyard’ effect, which is when people assume the weather they see in their backyard is (the same) everywhere else,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s that they don’t see snow, so they don’t think about skiing, but it certainly started slow. Then it improved significantly after the holidays.”

Now, in the second half of February, the number of people seeking lodging through Bretton Woods Vacations is “a little bit crazy, which is great for us,” Foti said.

“We’ve been sold out for the first time in a while, and the outlook for March is looking really good, too, both weather-wise, and we’ve had the best ski conditions that I remember in several years. … March occupancy is pretty much tied to the weather.”

Part of that success might also be owed to a partnership the short-term rental business developed in 2024 with the Mount Washington Cog Railway. In exchange for Bretton Woods Vacations’ staff handling ticket phone calls from Cog customers, the attraction has designated the Airbnb-style business its official lodging partner. The Cog offers “Stay and Ride” ticket packages that allow customers to be set up with rental lodging managed by Bretton Woods Vacations.

Cog Marketing Director Rob Arey noted that the railway has seen a 20% increase in ticket sales thanks to the collaboration, which formed after the Cog ended the use of a third-party service to take calls via a toll-free number.

“We were in a meeting, and (Foti) was talking about his call center,” Arey said. “I said, ‘Is there any chance you might want to look at being our call center, too?’ That’s how we’ve gotten here, and it’s really worked out well.”

In addition to the Cog, area tourism representative Charyl Reardon, president of the White Mountains Attraction Association, said Woodstock’s Ice Castles has been a strong draw for visitors this winter. Overall, Reardon said the White Mountains region is “pretty much on par, if not a bit ahead” of its hopeful number of recent visitors.

It’s a relief for her and more than 20 retail, tourism and commerce leaders around the state — including Somers and Keeler — who expressed concern ahead of the season in November about a proposed budget cut in the state Division of Travel & Tourism (DTTD).

The cut would have brought a 30% reduction in marketing funds from the longtime 3.15% allocation, which the retail and tourism industry feared would trigger a loss of as much as $68 million in tax revenues, according to a joint letter Reardon, Keeler and Somers penned.

However, Sen. Tim Lang, R-Sanbornton, introduced a bill in January to raise the allocated funds by having the DTTD calculate its budget on a slightly larger tax revenue pool than first proposed. The bill is in committee and will appear before the House and Senate in the coming months.

Reardon said she was grateful for Lang’s action, as well as for Gov. Kelly Ayotte, who has pushed to fully fund DTTD’s expenses in her proposed state budget.

Somers seconded Reardon, noting that he and the tourism industry have developed a “very positive working relationship (with Ayotte) right out of the gates.” Keeler was also pleased, saying the future of the state’s tourism, especially in the winter, is more secure with these recent developments.

“The tourism promotional budget benefits the ski areas when they do winter promotion, and it benefits the skiers,” Keeler said. “When we see the average return on that investment, it’s like $15 per dollar spent. You don’t see that in a lot of government expenses.”

Advertising for the 2023-24 winter season totaled over $538,000 and ran in core U.S. markets: Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont and Rhode Island, as well as New York, Connecticut, Montreal and Quebec City, according to a New Hampshire state-backed study by Indiana firm SMARInsights. It resulted in around 64,000 trips generating $83 million in visitor spending and $6 million in tax revenues, the study found.

If last year’s figures are anything to go by, they’re paying dividends for the state this year. That is, if you ask Arey, who says New York visitors are “way up” from other years; or Paula Kinney, a self-titled license plate watcher.

“I’m seeing more of Massachusetts, Maine and even Vermont’s coming over here, but a lot of Massachusetts,” Kinney said.