Vail Resorts comes to Europe and buys 60 % of Andermatt-Sedrun Sport AG

[vendul]

It’s 799 right now and it’s only for andermatt Sedrun Disentis


Inviato dal mio iPhone utilizzando TGR Forums

[vendul]

1100 in Davos, afosa and laax, if I’m not wrong and 2000 for Graubünden pass… than 850 with verbier and all other resorts sounds like a hell of a bargain


Inviato dal mio iPhone utilizzando TGR Forums

[subtle plague]

Zentralschweizpass is 1100 something. Includes Engelberg, Andermatt and airolo. so you're set for most snow patterns.
who wants a week in Verbier?
If you're in the valais, the magic pass is an absolute steal. Hell,...l even i considered it, and i dont live there....

[bobinch]

To be fair, $850 for a season pass at Andermatt sounds like a steal if you live in Switz. I assume that won’t actually be the case, but having fun imagining the guys at VR HQ scratching their heads at the sales numbers if they did it.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

It’s not a steal when the Magic Pass is chf399 for 50 odd resorts and includes the Summer for biking too. Not sure if there is a similar offer for resorts more easily accessible from Zurich/Basel?

[bobinch]

who wants a week in Verbier?

Only if you want the best freeride terrain in Switzerland 😉

[vendul]

It’s not a steal when the Magic Pass is chf399 for 50 odd resorts and includes the Summer for biking too. Not sure if there is a similar offer for resorts more easily accessible from Zurich/Basel?

Well full fare is 899



Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[doebedoe]

I've got mixed emotions about this:

- Concern about what it means for the ski experience and livelihoods of those who run smaller operations in the valley.
- Hopeful that the Swiss systems of open competition on the mountain and in town, fucks Vail.
- Worried about the hordes from the US that may descend on such a cool zone in the next few years.
- Resigned that maybe I buy an Epic next season if it encourages me to attend BBIEuro '23.

[Norseman]

I've got mixed emotions about this:

- Concern about what it means for the ski experience and livelihoods of those who run smaller operations in the valley.
- Hopeful that the Swiss systems of open competition on the mountain and in town, fucks Vail.
- Worried about the hordes from the US that may descend on such a cool zone in the next few years.
- Resigned that maybe I buy an Epic next season if it encourages me to attend BBIEuro '23.

Yep, I felt all those, too.

[nortonwhis]

That’s because you are trained in the duopoly mindset though. the lift tickets are such a relatively small part of the budget for a euro ski trip. I have had this conversation with my epic best friend. “Well if we go to Europe we need to stay here and ski here”. No if we go to Europe we need to go wherever we want because our lift tickets for a week is skiing will be a fraction of our plane tickets.

Hopefully that doesn’t change with this deal. It’s not obvious to me that it will. In the us, the model is to give away the lift tickets with a cheap pass because we can gouge you on foos and lodging which we control. Unless (until) Vail is going to buy half the restaurants and lodging in the andermatt domain, I don’t see the same model working there. Maybe wishful thinking though…

lol wtf you smoking out in tennesse. Its Whistler. I've seen it go thru 3 sets of owners and mostly the changes since vail took over have benefited me as a local. I'm currently debating a spring trip to Cham and could give two fucks about skiing where my epic pass takes me in the area. I'd much rather visit where the snow is / my friends are, but well free days are free days and if i was passing thru i would hit it up for sure.

[bobinch]

Well full fare is 899

Don’t think anyone pays that? All my non Verbier mates have already bought Magic Passes for their families.

[doebedoe]

lol wtf you smoking out in tennesse. Its Whistler. I've seen it go thru 3 sets of owners and mostly the changes since vail took over have benefited me as a local. I'm currently debating a spring trip to Cham and could give two fucks about skiing where my epic pass takes me in the area. I'd much rather visit where the snow is / my friends are, but well free days are free days and if i was passing thru i would hit it up for sure.

Thinking that regulatory environments concerning business, real estate, and access that surround Whistler and those that surround Andermatt require copious amounts of BC ganja. This is going to play out much different as they are not a complete owner and have to deal with a place who has a much longer, much more diverse, and entirely differently set of laws, policies, and expectations than BC.

Don't get me wrong: I don't like it. Because fuck vail. But expecting the same results in two entirely different places isn't warranted. Whistler is much much closer to the US environments Vail is used to operating in than Switzerland.

[subtle plague]

Don’t think anyone pays that? All my non Verbier mates have already bought Magic Passes for their families.

Yeah about 7 people buy it after the advance sale.

[Kopi_Red]

Get it now before they fuck it up. I’m going back next year and hope the Fail Corp hasn’t been able to screw it up to much between now and then.

My thoughts exactly.

[GKWood]

Lots of talk about Vail's hotel/real estate/food and beverage play but to me the main thing is they've pushed even the casual skier into season passes. At ~60/day, the average 6-day a year skier would be out $360 a year in tickets. Now, with day tickets > $150, that same skier thinks they're getting an amazing deal, paying >$600/year for a season pass ("pass pays off after 4 days!"). Meanwhile Vail extracted an extra >$240 from that skier, and all of it upfront, so they are hedged against bad snow years too. That same skier might now be inclined to visit another (destination) resort that's on the pass and any extra $ that flow into the Vail coffers from that are just icing on the cake.

Of course, if you're used to skiing 30+ days, like most people on this forum, the math is different and the whole Vail season pass model probably saved you money, or at the very least allowed you to ski many more places for the same dollar.

I hope this is not the start of expensive day tickets at Andermatt. The good thing is competition is stiff in Europe so it's unlikely they will be able to get away with their $150/day day ticket play. Unless they think they can attract enough "Epic Americans" to replace the lost local business?

[Buster Highmen]

I hope this is not the start of expensive day tickets at Andermatt. The good thing is competition is stiff in Europe so it's unlikely they will be able to get away with their $150/day day ticket play. Unless they think they can attract enough "Epic Americans" to replace the lost local business?

I hope so too, despite Vail, but I do think it's the end of the half price $45/day or less tickets as well as other week long, more tourist oriented deals.
That attraction may be over, a big part of the reason we started going.

Also, the pall of Stevens Pass hangs heavy.

The thing that won't go away is the plethora of privately owned businesses where the vibe is so much more upbeat and positive than the corporate employee.

[bobinch]

Paid chf110 for a Zermatt day pass on a February Sunday due to a new dynamic pricing model. I resented it… never paid more than 70 something chfs for a day pass in CH.

[GKWood]

Yeah dynamic pricing can be rough. I managed to get on the good side of it when I got a 7-day pass for Crans Montana for like 215 CHF back in January, but I had to book it weeks in advance and it happened to be an off-peak period.

[Mr. Mike]

lol wtf you smoking out in tennesse. Its Whistler. I've seen it go thru 3 sets of owners and mostly the changes since vail took over have benefited me as a local. I'm currently debating a spring trip to Cham and could give two fucks about skiing where my epic pass takes me in the area. I'd much rather visit where the snow is / my friends are, but well free days are free days and if i was passing thru i would hit it up for sure.

weed from time to time, but keep it to yourself. That behavior is frowned on in these parts.

[paige.]

lol wtf you smoking out in tennesse. Its Whistler. I've seen it go thru 3 sets of owners and mostly the changes since vail took over have benefited me as a local.

I think you've hit the core point here. Whistler had sold it's soul long before Vail got involved. It was already a corporate mega-resort - we were just exchanging one overlord for another. In many ways I also prefer Vail - if nothing else they seem to be focused on investing in the ski hill and improving lifts. There's no talk of building a waterslide park and rollercoaster like the previous owners wanted to. Or selling time shares like Intrawest. Pay is low, but not the lowest. For all we celebrate the old school, family-owned ski hills, Vail is paying Whistler Patrollers 60+% more than Castle pays theirs. And there's no concern of the hill going bankrupt and not opening up the next year.

I'm also not really convinced the Epic Passes are to blame for weekend lineups. Everything in the Sea to Sky has gotten significantly busier in the last few years - every camp site, every hiking trail, every parking lot. There's not a bunch of equivalent hills accessible from Vancouver like there is from Calgary (or SLC/Boulder), so you can't double the population of the city without having demand for it's major ski resort going up. I went to Cypress one afternoon last week and the lines were worse than what I've dealt with in Whistler most of the season and that was for shittier conditions, shittier terrain and shittier lifts and it's not like the lift ticket was cheap.

Obviously other mountains pre-Vail aren't the same as Whistler pre-Vail and in many situations I don't doubt that the transition was a negative one. But they aren't some evil conglomerate that ruins everything they touch.

[baron]

Kind of expected after the money poured into real estate though, right?

We can hope real estate prices tank that's the main reason Vail is adding property>to raise its stock price ..the income from passes is small compared to the land adding to their total corporate value. >Then maybe a real estate crash could force Vail to, sell sell sell!

[summit]

The problem with Vail and Whistler is that Vail hates bikes. "do we really need these big jumps on A-Line? Also trail builders are forbidden to ride features they are building otherwise they might get hurt. Etc and more dumbassery." - Vail leadership

[t.odd]

The problem with Vail and Whistler is that Vail hates bikes. "do we really need these big jumps on A-Line? Also trail builders are forbidden to ride features they are building otherwise they might get hurt. Etc and more dumbassery." - Vail leadership

one of those believe it when I see it situations, but have heard a lot of rumblings from a lot of people plugged into the bike side of WB that they have low expectations when it comes to the long term status of the WBP...that being said, if they actually had designs about pulling back, they aren't showing it by continuing to put money into creekside's new trails.

New lifts are alright, and needed, but it would also be nice to see them put some focus into summer grooming/glade maintenance, re-opening P2C side ski runs which are being completely reforested to actually (re)open up more useable terrain for more people.

[nortonwhis]

The problem with Vail and Whistler is that Vail hates bikes. "do we really need these big jumps on A-Line? Also trail builders are forbidden to ride features they are building otherwise they might get hurt. Etc and more dumbassery." - Vail leadership

Paige said everything pretty much perfectly from a Whistler side of things.
Summit: They did patrol they couldn't ride black diamond trails at work and patrol told them to fuck off and that they would ride what they want. Cant fire the whole team was what I heard.
Vail has actually been really good at expanding our bike park since they took over. Im sure it comes down to number. Bike park brings in lots of $$$ thru rentals and the shops owned by Vail and they likely understand its value, but i bet in some places where its barely breaking even its a tougher sell

[summit]

Paige said everything pretty much perfectly from a Whistler side of things.
Summit: They did patrol they couldn't ride black diamond trails at work and patrol told them to fuck off and that they would ride what they want. Cant fire the whole team was what I heard.
Vail has actually been really good at expanding our bike park since they took over. Im sure it comes down to number. Bike park brings in lots of $$$ thru rentals and the shops owned by Vail and they likely understand its value, but i bet in some places where its barely breaking even its a tougher sell

You are thinking too rationally. The senior leaders Vail moved in from the outside to run WB got their experience from Vail resorts that have bare-bones funded and deprioritized their bike parks for years. There is no love for bikes at Vail corporate. Katz considers mtb to be "too dangerous" of a sport. Vail has closed some bike parks, starved others of funds, and redeveloped others to downgrade ratings and remove features. They view bikes as a risky loss leader that is eye candy for social media and brochures, but not a real product, much as they view like night skiing. To Vail a green dirt sidewalk looks every bit as good in a brochure as Schleyer or Clown Shoes because "target audience," but the green means fewer injuries and less risk. So yea they'll throw some money at Creekside blues, but don't be surprised when they balk at the costs of maintaining black/double black jumps, then balk at the resulting increased injuries, and close/sanitize trails. I don't live in BC, but I have seen the downfall of many bikeparks under Vail ownership. There's the right, the wrong way, and the Vail Way, and Vail only cares about the Vail Way.

[Buster Highmen]

The point is that the euro model of lift tickets in particular is different than the N. America model and the fact that for at least the last 20 years, skiing in Yurp is cheaper (and generally better imho) than skiing in N. America. Including and especially at the major N. American resorts. After a load of shitty experiences with "locals", we quit patronizing the majors.

I paid $215 chf for 4 days at the Jungfrau. I paid at most 45chf for days around the SkiArena (with a 50chf half price card, so really about 52chf max).

There have been ticket deals in the past between American corporations and Euro ski areas, but no controlling interest that I can think of.

That's why I think this is fucked.