Eldora Mountain Resort
Creating a low-touch resort experience in the era of COVID
Role:
UX Designer, UX Researcher, Content Strategy
Duration:
May 2020
The Problem
Eldora Mountain Resort is one of Colorado’s most popular ski resorts, with 5,000 - 20,000 visits per week. When COVID-19 struck, Eldora was forced to close it’s resort and that number dropped to zero. Ski resorts are extremely dependent on physical visits so, how can we design a new ski resort experience that is low-touch? How can we responsibly go skiing/riding in the era of COVID-19?
This was an exciting service design problem to tackle, as the journey of planning and going to ski resort is relatively extensive. It has a lot of moving parts.
Challenges
Limited Physical Interaction
Thinking about how to do essential resort interactions from a distance spilled into almost all of our design decision. This was a challenge, but a unique one, which made it all the more interesting.
Tech Stack
The existing technological infrastructure for Eldora is well established. They use RFID scanners to scan passes, access to free WiFi through Purple, and the use of Square for food & beverage and rental purchases. It’s also important to note is that on the mountain, users would have little to no service. The cellular service at the base is good; it’s decent on the mountain.
Parking
Limited parking has been an issue Eldora has been trying to tackle even before COVID. The demand for parking did not meet the supply. We actually saw this as an opportunity, as with COVID we wanted to control capacity. Solving for capacity would also solve the parking issue.
The User
Visitors by Pass Type
Visitors by Location
Visitors by Gender
Visitors by Family
From our data, we gathered that a large majority of Eldora visitors were Colorado locals who wanted a quick and easy resort experience. The convenience of Eldora was the driving force of the reason people we going.
“Eldora is simple, and that’s what I like about it. You can drive from Boulder in the morning and be back before lunch. I hope in the COVID-era that can still be the case.”
- Savannah G.
Once we started to get a better idea for who our users were and why they were coming to Eldora, we completed user journeys as they applied to created personas. As this is a service design problem, we also completed journey maps for the Eldora staff (F&B, rental).
Insights
We narrowed our scope down to three main touch points:
Purchase of a day ticket
A massive portion of Eldora’s revenue comes from day ticket purchases. And, in the pre-COVID era, the only way you could buy day passes was in-person. How can we design the ticket purchasing experience so that it’s low-touch, yet efficient and pain-free?
Checkout for food & beverage
On the weekends, skiers/rider want to eat and drink. It’s an essential part of the resort experience and a key revenue stream. How can design the food & beverage experience to incorporate social distancing and reduce in-person contact?
Rental and return of gear
Based on our research, dealing with rented gear requires the most in-person interactions. The visitor has to try on their gear, and return it after they are done. How can a visitor pick up and return gear without human interaction?
Ideation & Iteration
Once we understood our user and to the greatest capacity, we began to ideate on solutions for the different touch points. A good portion of our ideas were digital solutions that required some physical touch points.
It seemed like the best route to take was the creation of a new digital flow that would incorporated into the existing Eldora website. It would allow the user to create a reservation online, order rentals, and order food & drink.
The online reservation process would solve any parking issues as well as give the resort the ability to control capacity.
Proposed Solutions
Visualization of how these touch points coincide with our high-level, post-COVID, user journey.
Digital Rental Flow
We proposed an online rental system, where the users can order their gear online and pick it up at Eldora. When the user was finished with the gear, they would place the gear in a sanitation bin for employees to check and clean before being used again.
Motion w/ full rental flow coming soon
Food & Beverage Flow
F&B would also have to be ordered online on the mountain and picked up at a chosen time. The food would also have to placed into cubbies to be picked up. These cubbies would be designated when the user puts in an order.
Along with a high-fidelity prototype deliverable, we also wanted to create mockups of what some of the cubbies might look like at Eldora. Visitors would order their food online, be designated a cubby, and pick up their food in said cubby.
Dimensions for a cubby system design
Cubbies in action, with assigned numbers, food trays, and branding
Day Pass Purchasing
Pre-COVID, users would have to go inside the resort in order to purchase day passes. We proposed the use of an RFID vending machine, where user could purchase day passes without any physical interaction. The vending machine would be 6ft apart, have a card deposit box, and disinfectant wipes.
Sketches for day pass vending machines, by Dave Laskowski
Results
Our solutions were pitched to the client, with the hope that they’d incorporate some of our ideas. Based on COVID trends, in the future adding a phased approach would a good option.