The Bottom Rail by Verbal Shredwright

No? Then Google it… you might learn something cool. So, you might be asking yourself what does this have to do with shredding the gnar? Sometimes we hear people say "there ought to be a law"... well, there usually already is it simply take courage and common semnse to apply them in a modern era. Stay with me… it is going to make both dollars and sense at the end if you get it. 

Back in the day names like Rockefeller, Carnegie and more where synonymous with wealth, power and influence. Some claimed they held monopolies in the oil and steel industries at the time and that monopolies where bad for the country and the economy. Families like the Rockefeller's, Carnegie's and others were thought to be the most intelligent men of their time because the companies they created and the wealth they amassed. These smart men hired the best attorneys, fought tooth and nail and argued breaking up their monopolies would destroy what they had built and earned. The courts found these enterprises to be monopolies in restraint of trade and ordered them broken up in spite of their best efforts.

 

Turns out the richest men of the times were not as smart as everyone thought. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act broke up their monopolies, but providing them with a stake in a multitude of new enterprises and opportunities that resulted. Instead of owning one oil or steel company they owned a stake in almost all of them.. then they capitalized again from new opportunities as they emerged like the railroads, automobiles and more. The empires and names these men had created and fought to preserve ultimately became wealthier and more influential than they ever imagined as a result. 

In addition to building empires and extraordinary wealth free market competition facilitated opportunities for new ventures and enterprises that were creating good paying jobs and elevating the standard of living for working people. Elevating the standard of living resulted in increased consumer spending creating greater demand and more opportunities for new businesses and entrepreneurs. At the same time the growing market resulted in more choices, better goods and services at more competitive prices for consumers. 

Today's big resort conglomerates are focused on business models and profits not people and opportunities. Heartless corporations are run by the same type of profit driven individuals who fear losing what they have just like Rockefeller and Carnegie before them. Big corporate resorts want consumers to spend as much of every dollar at one of their enterprises. That means they want you to travel on the transportation they operate, stay at the hotel they own, eat at their restaurants, shop at their stores, rent gear from their shops. 

When the BIG resort corporation owns most of the hotels, restaurants, shops, etc this is a modern approach to building resort market monopolies. Don't be fooled into believing the name or brand appearing on the hotel, restaurant or store as it is probably a franchise operated by the resort company. Unfortunately, the adverse side effects of this modern monopoly can be seen and felt by residents and visitors in mountain resort communities as prices continue to increase as options, opportunities and wages shrink impacting the caliber of work force, employee retention, quality of service and more.  

Instead of harnessing the passion that made mountain towns great and collaborating with local business these BIG resorts forget their roots as a local business that counted on the support of locals and opted to monopolize as much of the market place as they can, forcing out the very families and businesses how played a role in their success. Corporate resorts are more about non-compete agreements, local politics, code enforcement, etc in efforts to restrain and eliminate competition. This means a lower standards of service and higher prices… and if you don't like it go to a different store… but almost all of the stores are all owned by the resort. They don't have to care or even try get your money, so they pay the lowest wages to part-time seasonal employees who will be gone before the season ends. The corporate resort approach is to charge as much as possible and spend as little as possible… this maybe good for profits but bad for guest experiences and word of mouth advertising. These strategies reflect their profits over people philosophy and approach regardless of the money spent on PR spin and media campaigns.  

If the heads of BIG resort corporate resorts were true leaders they would recognize an opportunity to apply lesson from the past in a modern way to grow their profits and strengthen the communities they claim to care so much about. Partnering with people and the community will elevate the caliber of goods and services, reduce employee turn over and diversify their customer and community base from Baby Boomers to Millennials. But, if you're able or unwilling to learn from history you have already exposed your belief in an corporate greed and oppression models is still built is built on people, passion and powder days!  

As they say those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it