Ski resort giant Alterra Mountain Group generates most of their revenue from 300,000 annual passes, most of which are renewals. In order to ensure we had solid targets for off-season push notifications when it came time to renew, we had to build an app that provided tangible in-season value so users would actually download the app.
Supporting 43 resorts with myriad owners required robust middleware and system integrations work. From selling lift tickets and facilitating on-mountain dining to providing personalized user statistics and offering social features, this app does it all!
The ask
The world’s top ski resorts needed an app that would allow their demanding, global user base to buy annual passes, check conditions, make mobile e-commerce payments, have multiple social features, and robust push notifications. As if that weren’t challenging enough, the app had to function smoothly across 43 mountains with dozens of owners and nearly as many different backends.
E-Commerce + Value For Users
A Reason For Existing
Multi-mountain passes represent the vast majority of AMG revenue. The Ikon app's digital strategy was designed in order to facilitate and increase the purchase of these passes.
Since selling lift tickets in the height of summer can be as hard as nailing a double alley-oop flatspin 900 on an icy half pipe, we needed features that were exciting and helpful enough to draw in-season users to download the app and enable push notifications. This empowers IKON’s marketing team to push gentle nudges for users to renew their passes for the following summer.
Driving Engagement With Useful Content
User research identified that the most-desired feature was a reliable and official source for up-to-date snowfall totals, conditions, on-mountain weather, groom reports, lift openings, and more. This feature was a key driver of downloads and sky-high monthly active users.
Brand Identity
The app introduced a series of new use cases for Ikon’s identity. Our app development team worked closely with our client to supplement the brand’s identity with new assets.
A custom icon set helped create a modern, clean, unified look across the app while still playing nice with the unique branding of the 43 mountains across the world of Ikon Pass.
Social Features: Staying Connected
Our consumer research identified a dream feature shared by many: seeing which friends were on the mountain that day, and where they were located. This presented an opportunity to build a sticky feature that would drive users to share the app with friends.
Limiting location sharing to on-mountain only meant that users were far more receptive than they are with conventional location tracking tools.
