Lift ticket prices

NHpowderhound

NHpowderhound

New member
It's just sickening to see lift ticket prices soaring!What are they thinking?Less skier visits will make up for the extra $10 they get from each person?Volume.More skier visits=more $$.A family of 4(2adults&2kids)will spend well over $200 for a day of skiing/riding.Thats just gas,food and lift tickets!Never mind lodging or souvenirs.This practice will result in the death of resort skiing.Let's see,build a resort community with condos,hotels and shops,then make it affordable for a small percentage of skier/riders.Dumb.Bad buisness. <BR>Lowering ticket prices will attract more skier visits,more lodging bookings and more money for shareholders by way of volume! <BR>I work for a supermarket and we dont make our money by selling our goods to a small percentage of shoppers by making more money on products one at a time.A box of Jello may cost us $.15.We dont sell it for $3.50 to three people($10.50).We sell it for $.25 to 3000 people($750). <BR>I just dont get thier reasoning. <BR>((* <BR>*))NHPH
 
The way things seem to be going is that if you are a frequent skier you need to go with the season pass approach. The bigger corporate ski areas (ASC, etc) seem to be putting together cheap multi-mountain deals, like the "threedom pass Loon, WV, Cran" or the $299 Attitash, Sunday River deal. I'm not a huge fan of any of those mountains, but I can't afford to pay single day lift ticket prices all season long. So I got the $299 pass from SR/Atti-trash and figure I'll get my money out of it and then hit up the 2-fers, deal days, etc and pay for single day tixs once in a while when I want to go somewhere else. <BR> <BR>Is Jay still offering the 1/2 price tix w/a season pass from another mountain? A couple seasons ago I bought the threedom pass and skied at Jay enough to almost pay for the $350 pass just in what it saved me at Jay. <BR> <BR>It's fine with me if they want to charge the school vacation week, Prez day weekend crowds $50-$70 if they can offer cheap season pass deals for everyone else.
 
from my understanding of the industry right now, the ticket prices are being driven largely by insurance prices at most non-corporate resorts. blame lawyers and frivilous civil suits for making us reach deeper into our pockets. one person gets rich, so the rest of us may pay. lots of ski areas have been forced to shut down as they can't even break even. <BR> <BR>the big corporate resorts need to keep prices high because they are still paying for their high speed lifts and ammenities and constant expansion projects. <BR> <BR>lowering prices only works if demand is high and if ticket sales will increase enough to justify the loss of margin. i don't think demand is high enough at most resorts that lowering prices dramatically would increase their profit (if any profit is being made at all). <BR> <BR>what needs to be done first is to increase demand. this can only be done by increasing the number of skiers and skier visits. perhaps this increase in demand is limited by prices themselves (a catch-22 situation in which neither end can give). however, beyond ticket prices... the expense for skiing is more noticable in lodging, meals, gear, clothing, gas, car repair, etc. <BR> <BR>i've been debating adding up my NET expenses including gear and gas and food, etc. and averaging out what my actual daily cost of a day of skiing would be. i'd guess for a $45 lift ticket, my average NET cost of skiing would be around $70 with everything averaged in. multiply that times a family of 4 times a couple days on the slopes and compare that price to the cost of a new nintendo game cube, some games, and a new DVD player and i wonder where the average person's priorities are. <BR> <BR>unfortunately, we've become a lazy society and the competition for people's "entertainment and leisure" money has gotten very fierce!
 
The sensitivity of skier demand to lift ticket prices is not all that much, because lift tickets are only part of the equation, and the difference between a cheap or expensive ticket is a very small part. <BR> <BR>I first tracked the cost of a season in 1989-90. It cost about 5K for 28 ski days for me, 11 for my wife, 16 for my 5-year-old and some day care for a baby. That included one 9-day destination trip to Steamboat/Vail, but we drove and didn't spend for premium lodging. Total season cost was ~$110 per skier day, and what were lift tickets then, $30-35? <BR> <BR>When lift tickets are only 1/3 of the cost of skiing, I personally am never going to try to save a few bucks by skiing a lesser quantity/quality area (such as Summit County vs. Vail in the above example). Sure Alta's ticket is a bargain, but given the quality I'd probably be skiing there as often even if the tickets cost the same as everyone else. <BR> <BR>So the cheap season pass deal is great if it applies to a quality area like Mammoth. But for the Loon reports I've been reading the past 3 seasons, I really don't get it. <BR> <BR>To paraphrase: "Life is too short to drink cheap wine or to ski crap if better is available." So my advice to those trying stretch a ski budget: Be diligent in driving vs. flying, getting up early or coming home late to save on lodging, brown bagging, sleuthing out specials at the areas you like etc., but don't cut corners on the quality of skiing.
 
<I>Be diligent in driving vs. flying, getting up early or coming home late to save on lodging, brown bagging, sleuthing out specials at the areas you like etc., but don't cut corners on the quality of skiing. </I> <BR> <BR>this has always been my plan of attack. just remember that smaller mountains with fewer trails, less ammenities, less vertical, etc. is not always cutting corners and lowering quality of skiing! <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":)">
 
That's one of the reasons I made the Alta comment. <BR> <BR>In Northern California this season Kirkwood and Sugar Bowl combined to offer the $399 Sugarwood Pass. These are the 2 highest snowfall areas in the Sierra, and both have substantial advanced-to-extreme terrain despite less than 2,000 vertical. While not the largest areas overall both are still in the 2,000 acre range and the combined pass should be attractive to serious skiers on a budget. <BR> <BR>I hope your weather maps are accurate for Sierra as for Northeast. There has been nothing the past 3 weeks.
 
i think river's response to nhpowderhound pretty much covers all the major points and hits it right on the head... i have to laugh because while at loon this past week , while eating our brown bagged lunch, my buddy and i cracked open the newest edition of nh ski week mag. a headline story about the new high speed quad going in at bretton woods. the headline read " "bretton spends 2 million dollars on new quad ". think about that... 2 million dollars how absurd is that!!!!. bretton, a flat little road bump, that gets great snow ( (relatively) with less than 2000 vert, outlays 2 million to put in a lift that does not even go t to b. it brings their high speed quad total to 4... anyone who has ever skied bretton knows that that place does not really need 4 high speed quads... but are 4 high speed quads gonna help bring in the families that make $200,000 a year and have thier 2.5 kids and will spend more in one holiday weekend at the resort than me, river and nh powderhound combined in the season? yeah probably... don't get me wrong , i love hs q's... ervery area has it's own systems and to answer nhpowders question in a short paragraph is impossible.. but i think that story about bretton is a pretty good summation of one of the problems. again river hits on most of the others. but i'll state again for the record , that while i fully agree with tony c's and river's point's, certain approaches taken by resorts , to me make no financial sense... a season pass for under three hundred is an example... i'm gonna ski killington this year at least 25 times for 299... and i'll ski loon at least 30 times for 259. now i 'm in a popstion of being a mid week skier so i know i am less of a factor, significantly. i'm trying to figure out just how much relevance the mid week skier has to the overall picture... i would like to somehow figure out the allocation ( on average ) percentage of revenues for sat and sun vs mon - fri for areas. another thing that has always intrigued me is how certain areas determine wether or not the cheap season pass makes sense for them. in new england, a place like stowe gives very limited discounts on season passes as opposed to a place like loon...obviously the 2 areas cannot compare terrain wise...but then , how does one explain mammoth's cheap season pass. i would love to be able to sit down with an executive and just fire away questions that might make some of this make sense... but yes nh powderhound, look no further than the 2 million outlay from bretton to start to answer your question. and again i have to believe that the evolving legal / litigation issues must play a large role in what is going on also. and of course, leslie b rotten's brilliant real estate speculations
 
and i forgot to address clg898.. i strongly disagree that it is ok to offer cheap season passes...cheap season passes mean a shorter season for the hard core.. there is no doubt in my mind about this... they are the death knell for spring skiing... i'd rather pay double or triple the price for one pass and know that i will be havin lift accessed turns for 7 months.. but that's just me.. and, trajically, the public doesn't feel that way
 
the cheap season pass thing has worked really well for booth creek (obvious so cause they keep offering that 3dom pass and lots of people keep raving about it!). it's actually genius when you think about it. <BR> <BR>loon and WV are the closest "big" ski areas to boston metro, so lots of skiers like these options because they are close. now lets evalute how many times you need to ski these mountains to break even on their cheap pass... depending on which of the three booth creek places people ski, i'd guess around 6-8. the average skier probably doesn't ski more than 8 times a year any ways, so instantly booth creek has forced an average skiers hand that buys the pass (ie why ski any where else once you bought the pass to three resorts, it's all free skiing at that point vs. paying lift tickets). more importantly, that means those skiers spend money for services at those mountains (food, lodging, lockers, rentals (not included in the pass for obvious reasons! esp when you consider the clientel), lessons, ski shop, vallet parking (huh?), etc. maybe they break even on the cheap pass (that's if the 'average' skier even uses the pass enough to make it worth it!), but they pick up primo dollar signs on the extras. <BR> <BR>could an area like cannon or wildcat get away with this type of pass? not without loosing their shirts! cannon and bw can combine mid-week only for the bold and beautiful deal, but that's it. cause their clinetel is different, they have people like me skiing cannon 10+ times a year at $45 a pop and brown bagging everyday. and with a pass, i'd instantly be up there an solid extra 6 days. <BR> <BR>at most solid new england ski areas, it is amazing how much you need to ski the same area to make a pass worth it. i find that too limiting except at my favorite mountain (which i don't quite ski enough to make the pass worth it). i like variety and checking out new places, trying to find my next favorite mountain. <BR> <BR>i would guess most people like variety and don't want to ski the same area all season. wouldn't most 'average' skiers putting in less than a dozen ski days a year loose money on a season pass? <BR> <BR>it's always good money for the resort. even if they loose money in the long term, they are getting big bucks up front to help pay for snow making and other early season expenses while they operate in the red (assuming they ever do not operate that way, haha).
 
joegm, "cheap" season passes have nothing to do with ski areas closing early. The fact of the matter is once the snow melts, the sun shines, and the trees start to bud in Boston, Hartford, NYC, etc. people stop skiing en masse... that's why the ski areas close. Once you get past school vacation weeks and the long weekends, families stop renting condos, renting skis, taking lessons, and paying through through the nose for the family to have lunch in the cafeteria. <BR> <BR>I know from your posts on the topic that you feel that the diehard skiers deserve to have the lift spinning as long as there is good snow to be had because you feel that we (diehards) are the ones who support and prop up the industry. That's just wrong, the die hard skiers are NOT the ones who have kept ski areas afloat. Look at us, we're the ones making 6 and 7 hour roundtrips to avoid having to pay for lodging, we stay at $15/night hostels, etc. We ski mid-week, we brown bag it, search out 2-fers and deal days like they're gold, we don't rent equipment, don't take lessons, don't stay in the resort hotels and condos, etc. It's the average upper middle class suburban flatland family, not us, who pumps the vast majority of money into the ski areas. <BR> <BR>Ski areas in NH/ME probably see more than 85% of their skier visits between x-mas and President's Day/MA School Vacation week. The fact of the matter is that a very small percentage of people are still skiing in early April. <BR> <BR>The reasons ski areas are closing earlier are: <BR>1. Skyrocketing insurance premiums - I've seen so many ski areas close when they've got ridiculoulsy good skiing. Why, because they have no choice! I hate seeing ski areas close when there is still great spring skiing to be had, but their insurance coverage is priced based on an estimate number of skier days with a specified closing date. I don't know about all resorts, but I know that many of them set their closing date well before the season even begins... they know the latest they will be open this year is April X because that is the date specified in their insurance coverage. <BR>You can thank all the frivolous lawsuits for this (and it's not just skiing... medical insurance, auto, everything!) <BR> <BR>2. Cost to maintain/operate infrastructure. Every mountain now feels they HAVE TO have a high speed quad to compete. They NEED an expanded base area with numerous dining options, a large rental shop, and retail space. High speed quads take more energy to run (therefore far more expensive), large base lodges are costly to heat, light, and staff, etc. <BR> <BR>3. Most people don't ski in March/April. I covered this already, but my first two points would be moot if people still took extended ski vacations in March and April. If skier visits on a weekend in early April were the same as skier visits on a weekend in early February, every ski area would still be open. At some point in the season it costs more to stay open than they bring in... no business would last very long if they lost money every time they sold you something. <BR> <BR>Cheap passes have nothing to do with an area's closing date.
 
Steve... just read your post, after posting mine. I think we are on the same page. I basically regurgitated your comments, sorry! <BR> <BR>As for me, I got the threedom pass two years ago, no pass last year, and the $299 Attitash/Sunday River pass this year. I ski at Wildcat and Attitash a lot anyway and I really like Attitash (the original, not Bear Peak). It's definitely worth the money and lets me ski more than I would otherwise. I'll probably ski about 35 days at lift served areas this winter and maybe half will be at Attitash/Sunday River. I also like to have some variety and will get up to Wildcat at least ten times and probably hit up Jay Peak, Cannon, and maybe Sugarbush to round out the rest of my skiing. The lifts would be running with or without me, so at least they're guaranteed $299 from me plus the cost of a couple of beers at the end of each day. I could go on about the other reasons the passes have been good for the ski areas (if they weren't, why would they offer them?), but my dog's about to wet himself!
 
i do not expect every area to ski into may and june... obviously the market is not there in terms of daily revenue to justify costs for every area to do it.. i still must disagree with a lot of what you said, while agreeing with some of it. killington used to be able to be counted on to ski to june 1st at worst and often further. when i first started skiing about 8 years ago , i can remember being at wildcat through the end of april for about the first 3 years i skied. your second last line says " at some point it costs more to stay open than they bring in, , no business would last very long if they lost money every time they sold you something ". i am having trouble understanding that statement. you cannot tell me that the ONLY FACTOR ski areas use to determine wether or not to spin lifts is based on a daily cost analysis of how much money is brought in.. if that were the case, no area would open midweek prior to christmas... are you trying to say that killington is covering their costs on a daily basis with daily ticket revenue from say, opening day this year up until around now.. with all the snow making , payroll, testing of equipment, insurance costs broken down per day, per day.. of course they are not.... especially when they offer CHEAPER , daily lift ticket rates... ( which i have stated before , i disagree with ) but they are still open because they know it will get made up for later by the large margin skiers you cite. along the lines of daily ticket revenue justification, that's my point about the season passes... killington charges 299 for a season pass mid week ...if they charged more for that pass, they would have more money which would/ should / could in theory, make it easier for them to justify staying open later by blowing more snow on superstar throughout the year. the way i read your last 2 lines , they seem to contradict each other... i think if a place like k and a place like wildcat decided to be the 2 late season lift spinners by committing to blowing the hell out of one trail all winter long, and advertised this through marketing, they could easily sell just as many passes for , i would say 700 to 800... would this be enough to cover all the costs you cite... i can't say for sure... i don't work in the industry... all i know is k used to stay open a hell of a lot longer than they have been prior to offering a 299 season pass and the cat , i know stayed open longer, not as long as k, but longer than they have been... maybe this would not work.. maybe there are just not enough skiers out there who would be happy with skiing into june if it meant they had to commit 80 to 90 % of their days on snow to one or 2 resorts. we are all different, and i respect that.. but me, i would do it in a minute if it meant a 7 month season, ( i pretty much do it now with k and loon as the primary places and the 6 or 7 day trips to other places. if loon and k double thier pass prices , i'd still buy them ) especially when the ass end of the season is such a joy to be skiing in... it's the closest thing to skiing in the summer you can get... and again, we all have our opinions, but having skied in the past 4 summers, i feel it's just as good, if not better, than fresh powder. i know i'll get hammered on that , but until you have tried it, i don't think you can really say for sure. i strongly disagree with " cheap passes have NOTHING to do with an area's closing date "... it's so obvious that the direction of most places is to maximize cash in a smaller period of time.... it has a lot to do with it , along with all the other valid points you cite... when you say the fact is very few skiers are still skiing in april, i agree 100%, and i think you would agree that most of them are season pass holders ( likely cheap season pass holders ) i say k and cat should charge more and see if you can extend the season substantially. do this but advertise it...but maybe u r right and it just can't be done . but the daily revenue justification idea holds no water.. they operate numerous days "losing" money, relative to christmas week and feb vaca... it just depends on how you want to ammortize the costs .
 
sorry i forgot a few things... i don't feel the die hards ( at this point ) prop up the industry... i admit i'm a die hard and have admitted numerous times that i'm gonna kill killington and loon this year as i have done for the past 2 or 3 years because they insist on only chargin me 299 to ski for the season...that again goes to my point about the season passes. cheap season passes have been very sucessful for the resorts... if one wants to say that that is NECESSARILY good for the skiers, go ahead...but what i see for the "regular" skiers is overcrowded slopes and for the "diehards" a shorter season... i don't think either of those are good things
 
I analyzed Mammoth's season pass before, but to recap: <BR> <BR>1. The first big breakpoint in expense of skiing is between day trip areas and those that require overnight lodging. At 5-6 hours from L.A. Mammoth is 99% in the latter category. <BR> <BR>2. Mammoth did lose 30% of its skier days between mid-80's and mid-90's. Most of this was L.A. demographics, and a big part of this is that the teenage to 20-somethings (most price sensitive) in SoCal are now at least 2/3 snowboarders. So they were day tripping Big Bear and Mt. High, 1,000 foot snowmaking hills, but with world class terrain parks. <BR> <BR>3. So by offering the $399 passes Mammoth gets some of these people, who must also spend something in town for food and lodging. <BR> <BR>4. The $399 passes are limited in number (25,000) and availability (April of prior season). The latter feature leads to inefficient use. Mammoth's marketing director claims the average pass was only used 6.5 days. 10M of upfront cash is not too shabby either. <BR> <BR>I see no relationship between cheap season passes and length of season. They are independent decisions, and Mammoth has not changed its late season policy during this recent period. There was a cutback in number of lifts open in late April and May back in the late 80's when overall skier visits started to decline. They concluded they could save a few bucks by running 3 or 4 lifts instead of 10-12 on about 2/3 as much terrain. <BR> <BR>Killington, under more financial pressure, also has to "prefund" its spring with extra snowmaking expense (not necessary at Mammoth, which is flexible with spring operation depending on natural season snowpack), and obviously someone decided it wasn't worth it. <BR> <BR>I believe the free market has spoken, and $299-$399 is the going rate for "cheap season passes" in Northeast, Colorado and West Coast. If someone tries to charge $700 they will sell very few. Most of the people who buy a $399 pass would have skied those days distributed among many areas (especially in Northeast IMHO). It's a contest for market share of the price-sensitive skiers (be happy; they are not ignoring you). Killington doesn't care if joegm skis 25 days on the pass if the AVERAGE passholder is doing 10, or wouldn't have been there otherwise.
 
Wow,what a great bunch of well thought out replies.It's nice to have a forum where you can express an opinion and have some nice objective,constructive,adult responses.Let's hope Ashcroft doesn't read FTO or we'll be monitored for overusing our free speech.LOL <BR>((* <BR>*))NHPH
 
This is a very interesting thread. I agree completely with the notion that ski-resort operators more and more seek to be 'destination' resorts, aka they want to cater to people who will come and drop enough money such that $10 in a lift ticket price is in the noise range. <BR> <BR>The perfect example? I am embarrassed to admit that I go to Stratton every Christmas for 4 days only because my non-skiing wife likes the Manchester area. Stratton has poured a ton of money into 6-person high speeds over the past 3 years, but$ for $, it is the WORST lift system I've seen in that the high speeds tend to serve the least interesting terrain. And forget about the gondola during peak hours ... <BR> <BR>The point: Stratton charges approx $5 more than any other place around. Now, get this, they have added a "Stratton club' with around a $20-30K initiation fee that entitles 'members' to enter dedicated lines (completely analogous to ski school lines) and cut in front of everyone else. <BR> <BR>So I sent them an email, saying that their marketing message boils down to (1) you just paid the highest lift-ticket price in the East (and possible the nation, with possible exception of Deer Valley), and (2) you are a second-class citizen condemned to stand in line with the other low-lifes. I may have been slightly more diplomatic. Their response: a bunch of MBA/McKinsey BS about their market segmentation indicated a void in this particular niche market. <BR> <BR>So, this year, I tell my wife, lets at least find some decent terrain with something for you to do, so I call Smuggs, again between Xmas and New Years. They want so much $ I thought they had thought I wanted to stay to Easter. But, not to worry, included a lesson every day, and, best of all, bingo at night ( I may be a little carried away here ...). So, apparently Smuggs wants a piece of the Stratton action ... I need to tell em about the great two-class approach in lift lines so they too can zoom in on this untapped market. <BR> <BR>Of course, I pay less in March (incl air fare from JFK) to go to SnowBird for 5 days, take my son, stay in the Cliff hotel, and ski the best snow and best terrain on the planet. But, heh, this is not the Stratton marketing crowd running the Bird ... at least not yet ... <BR> <BR>Rick
 
Rick wrote: <BR><BLOCKQUOTE><HR SIZE=0><!-Quote-!><FONT SIZE=1><B>Quote:</B></FONT><P>I am embarrassed to admit that I go to Stratton every Christmas for 4 days only because my non-skiing wife likes the Manchester area.<!-/Quote-!><HR SIZE=0></BLOCKQUOTE> <BR>There's always Bromley (closer to Manchester) and Magic, both cheaper -- and, IMHO, more enjoyable.
 
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