Hokkaido Is Taking Over as the World’s Ultimate Ski Destination

Last December, Daniel Barotz, a 35-year-old financial adviser in Denver, was fed up with the paltry snowfall in Vail. “I needed my powder fix and was willing to go wherever the snow was deep,” he says. He ended up booking a trip to Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s main islands.

This response to poor local snowfall is increasingly common among Americans and ski enthusiasts around the globe. While the world’s best resorts have slogged through warm winters, the total visitors to Hokkaido rose 17.8 percent, to 2.2 million, in 2017 from a year earlier, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization. That’s up from 808,000 five years ago.