One of the biggest problems that is hitting ski towns is the hyper cheap season passes that everyone buys. The model has created a huge surge of demand for people to go skiing in winter which has put pressure on the local ski towns (more short term rental demands, second home buyers) and the resources at ski mountains (aka the insane lines on a good ski day now).
It's interesting because it has allowed a lot more people to get into skiing but the trade off has been that with more volume on the ski hills - more demand on the local real estate and more crowded infrastructure. Businesses have done well since they sold more but locals who are on a tighter budget have inflating home costs. Pandemic also made things get extra strange.
I guess it could mean that the resorts in the Ikon/Epic networks are experiencing these problems while out of network locations are seeing slumping business (which does anecdotally appears true) but I don’t think that alone is driving the issues.
I think what that broad set of data is a poor marker as its opaque in its accuracy and has no ability to drill down further into the data. It is a good starter point - and I do appreciate a counter information to my theory.
1. Those are gross volume but the distribution of visits per location has changed dramatically as a result of the Ikon and Epic passes - ie local demand pressure in certain localities.
2. What is the distribution of one time buyers versus season pass holders?
3. International vs domestic?
4. Over that time period how many people have actually left ski resorts and started to backcountry ski instead (a not insignificant amount) - which is demand that would be unaccounted for.
5. The other challenge with skiing is it is highly weather dependent - so a bad snow year will limit the amount of visits. I imagine if you were to divy up this plot by states - there would be a strong correlation with big snow years in California and large movements in the numbers merely as a function of scale.
I’ll follow up and say I think one place that the networked season passes might be driving on the real estate front is that I think they make it less attractive for “locals” to get started skiing and to stay local. The massive increase in day pass prices means where once someone in Seattle, Sacramento or Denver might just try a few days skiing to see if they like it, they now have to make a much more major commitment up front to get into the sport. Those “locals” would just drive in an hour or two rather than rent a ski town property.
The multi resort passes make it much more attractive to take a dedicated ski vacation than just check out a different nearby resort.
Been looking through the Vail annual reports. In FY 2010 Season/Epic passes were 35% of ticket revenue, FY 2019 it was 47%, FY 2021 61%. I think your theory has legs.
It’s also an intentional strategy by Vail to shift sales into season passes. A day pass is incredibly expensive, $229 at the ticket window. For about $600 you might as well buy a season pass just in case you get to use it a bit. They are taking a page out of the gym membership model.
It's really the theme park model that they are learning from. Disney and Universal are in an arms race perfecting this science. A lot of people end up buying annual passes from Disney or Universal since you end up ahead after a couple visits. If you are local that's pretty easy to do. Suddenly you are in the park more often, in arms reach of their $14 entrees and merchandise shops in every corner. Having you in the park/skilodge more often means more chances they can upsell you on stuff they make some real money on, like $12 beer on a 10x markup. Even if you show up every single day and really milk your season pass to these sorts of places, the resort still ends up ahead due to all the other sales you might make for them. Gotta take a break for food at some point when skiing or going to disneyland no matter what.
Thanks. I've been a skier for a long time and have a market / data mindset and I have been watching the changes on ski mountains/communities over that time.
For me personally the hyper cheap passes have a had a positive effect in getting people into skiing that wouldn't be able to afford the commitment. It has, unfortunately, lowered the quality of skiing as on good weather conditions the volume of runs you can get / time spent in line has dropped significantly. That and the quality of snow decreases (ie more people chew up the snow faster). That is admittedly only a concern for skiers/snowboarders who are at a certain level of ability to take advantage of those conditions (most people don't care).
I think one of the unintended consequences of the ski industry doing this is that they have (and probably don't really care) made it skiing worse for locals (via higher housing costs, more competition for resources (snow, food), congestion. Maybe it has helped the local business owner, and maybe there are more jobs but I would wager the jobs are not career jobs but more like dead end jobs. It is an age-old problem between corporate ownership of ski mountains and crusty locals -- the power dynamics lie in the favor of the corporates.
The model plays well for the traveling skier type who is willing to travel and stay on mountain accommodation. They lower the costs of acquisition and recoupe on spend on site. To everyones point - the disney model / theme park model.
Theres lots more to it - but probably as far as I am willing to think about it at this point :)
That's also because vail has been buying up mountains. The epic pass even works for the little podunk midwestern ski slopes I used to ride on, since vail bought them within the past decade or two.
The epic pass works in places outside the US as well so some Europeans buy it if they are planning one US trip and some days in the areas in the Alps that are covered.
Lift tickets are like 2x what they were 7 years ago. Prices are matching demand, I doubt it's vice versa. Personally, I think social media is the culprit for the increased demand. Previously people in most places barely knew skiing was an accessible thing to do. Now you have mimetic desire from their friends posting glamor shots at the resort for all to see.
The consolidation of ski resorts by just a few companies (e.g. Vail), and the creation of the Epic Pass has dramatically increased affordability and access. Just a few years ago a trip to Vail was a big deal; now it's an easy weekend trip for anyone with Southwest Rapid Rewards and an Epic Pass.
Anecdotally, in Whistler (now owned by Vail), day tickets are nearly double what they were a decade and a half ago. While season passes are nearly half the price.
It's interesting because it has allowed a lot more people to get into skiing but the trade off has been that with more volume on the ski hills - more demand on the local real estate and more crowded infrastructure. Businesses have done well since they sold more but locals who are on a tighter budget have inflating home costs. Pandemic also made things get extra strange.