Page 7 - ARUBA TODAY

A7
U.S. NEWS Wednesday 20 december 2017

American Living:

Snowfall has billion-dollar effect on business, Olympians

By EDDIE PELLS later and later every year, there’s a chance the skiing
AP National Writer the window where we’re sport won’t be around in 20
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — It’s making all that money gets years,” Lillis said.
no stretch to say that snow smaller. In ski towns, it’s the Lillis bought the Park City
is the key to success for Jon tourism market that keeps restaurant in hopes of ex-
Lillis. business alive.” panding to other ski resorts.
The reigning world cham- A study commissioned by He knows that soon, he will
pion in aerials skiing is also the Natural Resources De- depend on his business, not
a restaurant owner in Park fense Council and the ath- his athletic talent, to make
City, and business at his letes’ group Protect Our his living.
hotpot eatery increases Winters found that the 23 In October, he saw first-
by more than 100 percent million people who partici- hand how climate change
when nearby ski resorts are pate in winter sports added impacts his current day job.
open. an estimated $12.2 billion Ahead of Feb. 9-25 Winter
So, when winters grow each year to the U.S. econ- This photo shows Jon Lillis, the men’s aerial skiing world Olympics in South Korea, he
warmer and ski season omy; restaurants and bars champion from the United States, posing during an Associated and the U.S. aerials team
starts later — Park City, and contribute about 31,600 Press interview on the glacier above Saas-Fee, Switzerland. traveled from Park City to
Because snow is no longer guaranteed early in the season at
Vail in Colorado are among jobs and $942 million in their headquarters in Park City, Utah, she and other members of glaciers in Switzerland and
the Western resorts to push economic value. the US aerials national team went to train high on the Saas-Fee Finland so they could train
back openings by about But as ski seasons grow glacier ahead of the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics. on snow that hadn’t fallen
a week in each of the last shorter, all those numbers (AP Photo/John Leicester) yet in Utah.
two years — not only does have declined — about crease in revenue. troubling sign this season: “It definitely has become
it affect Lillis’ ability to train $1.07 billion gone between Under a worst-case-sce- A late-autumn warm spell harder to train early sea-
and, as is the case this 1999 and 2010 — and bad nario, where winter tem- across the country left only son” in the United States,
year, prepare for the Winter ski years take a significant peratures increase 4 to 10 3.5 percent of the 48 con- Lillis said in an interview
Olympics, it also affects the toll on most every business degrees by the end of the tiguous states with snow in Switzerland in Octo-
bottom line at his business. in a ski town such as Park century, the NRDC predicts cover on Nov. 26, the low- ber. “Right now, to train in
“We expect to do 70 per- City, Vail or Snowmass. In snow depths in the Ameri- est that figure has been that environment, it’s 65-
cent of our annual revenue Colorado, the NRDC found can West could decline since record-keeping be- 70 degrees. There’s not a
while the ski resorts are that “low-snow” winters between 25 to 100 percent, gan in 2003. chance for any training
open,” Lillis said. “So, the caused an 8 percent de- and the length of the snow “If ski resorts can’t stay (back home) over the next
longer they’re not open, cline in skier visits, which re- season in the Northeast open for a certain num- month or month and a half.
and it seems to be getting sulted in a $154 million de- could be cut in half. One ber of days per year, then “q