Economics of Ski Resorts, passes, American Ski Company etc.

[Woodsy]

Interesting article on IKON & EPIC and how they have changed the resort skiing model quickly. Theumbers are especially interesting.

https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/n...hoo&yptr=yahoo


Know much of this has been discussed debated in the Epic pass thread but it sure will be showing how it shakes out.

As I am an Epic Pass holder, I stopped and skied a day with my son at Mt Snow on the way to stay with friends in Strattton. That whole experience could be a thread in itself, but was marveling as I walked through the parking lot underneath the Grand Summit Lodge just like the one ASC built at @ the Canyons, Steamboat and many of their other resorts across the country. I remember when American Ski COmpany and Less Otten were changing the industry before debt and downfall.

Now we have Alterra, Vail, Talisker, POWDR, ASpen Ski CO. Boyne is still around.

It seems a strange time in resorts, but I like the pass model better than the real estate model.

[Woodsy]

Forgot al the lovely " Intrawest villages" we got in the 90s

Clocktowers for all!

[simple]

Vails season pass value numbers always looks better year to year when they keep increasing day passes each year so fucking much.

[old goat]

Vails season pass value numbers always looks better year to year when they keep increasing day passes each year so fucking much.

Offer cheap passes for a fraction of what a pass used to cost, get people hooked on the concept, then raise the price slowly enough that the frogs don't jump out of the hot water, until eventually you're selling expensive passes to a lot more people. Crank up the price of a day pass so that any frogs that do jump out are jumping from the boiling water into the fire. Create the illusion of greater value by offering skiing at a large number of other resorts with zero marginal cost, realizing that the avg skier might only ski at one or two of them in a given season, if that.

[Danno]

It was a full 11 years ago that Katz and Vail decided to introduce its Epic Pass with the proposition that providing skiers and snowboarders significant discounts to buy a season pass would have benefits for both consumers and resort operators. What he found over the next few years, he said in a recent interview, was that pass buyers not only increased the frequency with which they visited the slopes — leading to higher food, retail and rental totals even as “effective ticket price” decreased because they weren’t buying more expensive single-day lift passes — and that multiyear frequency grew as well, creating a new loyalty to Vail Resorts.

Uh, 11 years ago was when they decided to name the pass "Epic", it was hardly the beginning of the "cheap passes bring higher revenues" movement.

[fastfred]

The ski the summit pass was 750 or 900 when I was a kid then it was the buddy pass and now it's just the gaperific pass pack the tourons in bobby katz is a d bag and thg thinks he's a good skier

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[byates1]

I'd like to hear, and I've asked our house economics guru in Chief to weigh in on this one. Prepare yourself people, there are about to be some serious spreadsheets.

I doesn't feel good to me, but a 65 yr old s Korean woman wants my to ski w her for a week, so what do I know.

[Vt-Freeheel]

The ski the summit pass was 750 or 900 when I was a kid then it was the buddy pass and now it's just the gaperific pass pack the tourons in bobby katz is a d bag and thg thinks he's a good skier

Sent from my SM-J737V using TGR Forums mobile app

I'd like to hear, and I've asked our house economics guru in Chief to weigh in on this one. Prepare yourself people, there are about to be some serious spreadsheets.

I doesn't feel good to me, but a 65 yr old s Korean woman wants my to ski w her for a week, so what do I know.

You two drunk or hung over?

[m2711c]

les otten...more rock.

[Shredhead]

Vails season pass value numbers always looks better year to year when they keep increasing day passes each year so fucking much.

Plus they’re reducing overhead, by eliminating high paying mountain town jobs.


https://www.aspentimes.com/news/vail...ffs-this-year/

Move them all to Broomfield, pay them less, they can’t ski, increase shareholder value.

[hutash]

I'd like to hear, and I've asked our house economics guru in Chief to weigh in on this one. Prepare yourself people, there are about to be some serious spreadsheets.

I doesn't feel good to me, but a 65 yr old s Korean woman wants my to ski w her for a week, so what do I know.

...and you won't have to sleep in a cold van at night

[Benny Profane]

I've been buying these passes for over fifteen years now, and, I like them. Now that Alterra owns Sugarbush, next season is a no brainer, when they put a full Sugarbush plus five Killington on that pass. So many options. If the weather sucks in the East next month, well, Road Trip!

[Woodsy]

les otten...more rock.

Man I skiied with his daughter once @ the Canyons around the turn of the century. She was impressive.

Anyone know what happened to her?

[Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo]

Plus they’re reducing overhead, by eliminating high paying mountain town jobs.


https://www.aspentimes.com/news/vail...ffs-this-year/

Move them all to Broomfield, pay them less, they can’t ski, increase shareholder value.

I read that the other day and had to wince. Community value and shareholder value rarely play well together.

[LesterSmoove]

60% increase in Ikon sales? fuuuuucckkkk. bad news for me as an ornery JHMR passholder, but it's interesting that epic pass is also up 22%. they are probably cannibalizing the shit out of multi-day lift passes for long-time repeat customers and probably losing money on those customers in the hopes of making it up with overcrowding. In an ideal world, benevolent billionaires would own the ski resorts and run them just how I want them, while placing them into a trust so their shitty kids can't cash out to vail, alterra, or the crown family (alterra by a different name), but oh well.

even now, vail is way better than the competition at bleeding money out of customers on lodging, retail, F&B, and other ancillary revenue. Their specialty sports venture is a thing of beauty, economically speaking. They own most of the base village stores (including at other resorts), they own a decent amount of lodging at most resorts, and they also have a lock on that market of intermediate destination skiers who ski 5 days per year and spend big on rentals, lessons, on-mountain F+B, and slopeside lodging controlled by the resort. I know vail is directly making a profit on pass sales, and they're not just using it as a loss leader, but they still get a ton of ancillary revenue, so they benefit by offering relatively cheap passes to lock in visitation. you look at JHMR and they aren't making any ancillary revenue on retail/F&B from ikon passholders. they're increasing crowds and getting an unconfirmed payment per skier from Alterra, but they're giving away all the ancillary lodging revenue from those increased crowds to the other hotels and property owners since they don't own any lodging and their rental management arm controls a minority of the condos. to alterra, JHMR is maybe just a big name that gets people to buy their pass over the competition

it's all really interesting, that's for sure. and I will always maintain that the longer the megapass model continues, the more there will be a market for top tier resorts that charge a higher price for fewer crowds, while merely good resorts like copper, solitude, brighton, keystone need that megapass model to compete.

I want spreadsheets. we need a whistleblower at alterra to show us dem books