Part of our Global Entrepreneurship Week celebration Nov 13-19, 2023. Guest post by Mike Humphrey, Japan Skiing has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I don’t know why my parents decided skiing would be our family sport. They were not avid skiers, and we didn’t live in a ski […]

Part of our Global Entrepreneurship Week celebration Nov 13-19, 2023.

Guest post by Mike Humphrey, Japan

Skiing has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I don’t know why my parents decided skiing would be our family sport. They were not avid skiers, and we didn’t live in a ski town. Whatever the reason, I was on skis at 3, and my love for the sport began. We would spend every weekend in the winter on the hill.

When I was 15, I became a ski instructor. Skiing is my passion. I love being out on the hill, and I love the mountains.

As I grew older, skiing was still part of my life, but it became a hobby. I went to university and got a job. I started a family, and things were going well. I would ski weekends at our small local hill, but it was slowly being relegated to an afterthought.

That all changed seven years ago when I left my corporate job. It was time for a life choice: continue with my career or make a change. With some savings in our account and dreams of powder turns, I leapt. I left my job and moved our family to a ski town in Japan.

It has been seven years since we moved to the mountains, and it has been filled with joys, challenges, and, of course, skiing. In that time, we have operated two hotels and a restaurant and weathered the storm of Covid. It has been a hell of a ride, and not without its difficulties. Despite the challenges, I would never return to working a corporate job.

Read on to discover the challenges we faced while building a business and our dream life in a small mountain town.

The Challenges of Running a Small Business in a Ski Town

1 – Seasonal Customers

The highs and lows of running a business in a seasonal destination, whether a ski town or a beach destination, are extreme. During the winter, the city’s population triples in size. In the span of 4 months, we get 400,000 tourists visiting our small village of 5,000 people.

The influx of customers is terrific for business but not always for sanity. Imagine the demand for your products skyrocketing for four months and then crashing back to almost zero as soon as the snow starts to melt.

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