Ski Resort Tracks Sales With A New POS System
Cuchara Mountain Resort invests in a PC-based POS system to track the spending of 65,000 annual visitors at its two restaurants, convenience store, pro shop, day care and ski school.
Managing 65,000 annual visitors is no easy task for a ski resort. Cuchara Mountain Resort (Cuchara, CO) switched from stand-alone electronic cash registers to a PC-based point of sale (POS) system to make this task easier. POS VAR Chuck Scariano said Cuchara Mountain Resort's new owners called him as the result of an advertisement. "The new owner wanted to computerize the resort's operations to get a handle on his business," explains Scariano, COO of PC America (Congers, NY).
Resort Operates Several Small Businesses
Cuchara Mountain Resort operates several "mini" businesses at its location in the Rocky Mountains. These include two restaurants, a pro shop, a ski rental shop, a day care, a convenience store with movie rentals, a small golf course and a ski school. In addition, the resort offers year-round activities including poetry readings and a bluegrass music festival. "Tying all these various activities together was essential," says Scariano.
The resort had been getting daily totals from its registers using a log of its receipts (journal or Z-tapes). "There was no reporting capability," Scariano explains. The resort's new owner had some very specific goals he wanted to accomplish by installing a POS system, adds Scariano. These goals included maintaining a customer database for mailings, generating reports on the number of skiers per day, and managing the inventory of the pro and ski-rental shops.
System Components
Six weeks after an initial meeting with the resort owner, Scariano provided Cuchara Mountain Resort with a new POS system. System components included: Logic Controls pole displays and keyboards, MicroTouch touch screens, Metrologic scanners, Monarch bar-code printers and Star Micronics printers. Other system components included cash drawers from Indiana Cash Drawer, Pionex CPUs, APC power protection, Unitech credit card readers and ICVERIFY payment-processing software. PC America provided its own Cash Register Express 2000 POS software, which included customized reports. "One reason we chose the Logic Controls pole display is because it interfaced with our software. It also met the customer's requirements for size and readability," explains Scariano. Total cost for the system was $66,300.
"The resort needed to print ski passes that could not be duplicated," says Scariano. PC America helped the resort develop a random, alphabetic code for printed ski passes. This prevents skiers from trying to use expired passes. The black-and-white passes are printed out and given to skiers as they enter the resort.
The only challenge Scariano faced installing the new system was Mother Nature. "We had to dig through nearly frozen ground in November to lay cables," he says.
VAR Follows Up With Photo ID Badging
Scariano reports that the system has been live for one year with good results. Skiers can buy special packages including meal and lift tickets or purchase items separately. Once in the resort, ski passes give skiers access to all areas, such as the day care, restaurants and ski school. Scariano says the resort will soon be adding photo ID badges for added security, especially for the resort's day care. PC America continues to provide software upgrades on a regular basis. Because of its success with the resort's POS system, PC America will be providing its Cash Register Express 2000 software to the resort's new hotel.