Vail Resorts Q3 22 Results: Interesting Epic Pass Stats

ChrisC

ChrisC

Well-known member
Those $200 daily walk up ticket prices are really allowing Vail to execute on its Epic Pass strategy.


Providing some insight into Epic Pass usage and sales, it was revealed that 72% of visitors throughout this season used a pass product, compared to 60% in 2018/19, and 51% in 2014/15. Interestingly, Lynch revealed that the growth in visitation this season primarily occurred during off-peak periods. Compared to pre-covid 2019 visitation on weekday and non-holiday periods has increased by ~8% while visitation on the weekend and holiday periods decreased by ~3%. Lynch highlighted the increase in flexible and remote work as a key driver for this and expects the trend to continue.
 
An interesting piece of trivia would be, which ski resorts have the smallest delta in skier traffic between weekdays and weekends? I guess you'd think it would be some larger, semi-remote destination places like Big Sky, Jackson Hole, Aspen, Steamboat??
 
jimk said:
An interesting piece of trivia would be, which ski resorts have the smallest delta in skier traffic between weekdays and weekends? I guess you'd think it would be some larger, semi-remote destination places like Big Sky, Jackson Hole, Aspen, Steamboat??
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That would be my assumption, though I saw a big increase in crowds from Thursday to Friday at both Jackson in early Feb. 2022 and Schweitzer in late Feb. 2021. In both case the weather was a little nicer on the Friday, but it's locals not visitors who are more likely cherry pick their ski days.

Another snippet on the subject of weekend vs. weekday impact of the pandemic from NSAA in 2021:
weekdays accounted for 47 percent of visitation—that’s 27 percent higher than the previous year
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I wonder if the answer might be smaller local areas that have night skiing. There are certain places where weekday night skiing is very popular. So while they might be very low visitation on weekdays during daylight, the total daily data with nights might be much more consistent than even the big resorts. Just a hypothesis.
 
jimk said:
An interesting piece of trivia would be, which ski resorts have the smallest delta in skier traffic between weekdays and weekends? I guess you'd think it would be some larger, semi-remote destination places like Big Sky, Jackson Hole, Aspen, Steamboat??
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That seems like a fair hypothesis. However, the locals in these locations can blow this all out of the water when there are powder/good conditions.

All of these destination resorts have experienced large local population increases (especially with winter seasonal workers/locals) that really can have them functioning as day areas.

My weekend experiences at Jackson Hole with maybe 6" new snow:

Feb 25, 2018 - An almost 45 mintute+ line for the Bridger gondola on a Sunday. Got in line at 8:30am. Fun!
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Jackson on Jan 26, 2020: Another Sunday sh-tshow. Lines 30-60 minutes on Tram, Bridger and Sweetwater gondolas, I decided to head to Apres Vous and Teton for first tracks. (We skied Teton Pass on Saturday. Teton Country now runs a bus on weekends since there are too many cars. It's like free snowcat. Family friend who lives in Jackson only tours on weekends since it's so bad at the ski area). Mostly Local-inflicted.

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Telluride can be a local sh-tshow too on weekends - especially with 10-25" over 2 days. All locals - complaining about passes and other locals.

March 3, 2019. Coonskin Lift. (Sorry we cannot call it the Coonskin lift anymore because a black woman from NYC thought it was racist. No - the San Miguel river runs through the base and historically where they trapped raccoons. I guess we can call the lift Pallisades Telluride - or something stupid).

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Telluride Gondola on March 4, 2019.....and Prospect Bowl opening later that day. Luckily I was in 2nd gondola.

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So I am not sure how 'balanced' the less accessible destination resorts truly are..... especially with greater local populations, seasonal workers and digital nomads.
 
EMSC said:
I wonder if the answer might be smaller local areas that have night skiing. There are certain places where weekday night skiing is very popular. So while they might be very low visitation on weekdays during daylight, the total daily data with nights might be much more consistent than even the big resorts. Just a hypothesis.
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I have seen this effect in a few places:
Snoqualmie, WA
Stevens Pass, WA
Big Boulder, PA
Blue Mountain, PA

Most often it's due to night-time race leagues or other ski groups after work/school.

Yes, I skied some Pocono resorts during a business trip during late February Pandemic 2021. Didn't make to Greek Peak.
 
Tony Crocker said:
It's a good thing Patrick and I had that great powder weekend in Jackson back in 2006. I'm guessing the days of 31K on a Sunday at Jackson with 21 inches of new snow are now ancient history.
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Some Jackson Hole Growth Numbers - Better Lifts but the resort footprint is relatively the same.

While no one expects next year to surpass this season’s numbers, completing the new Solitude Station atop the Sweetwater Gondola to attract more families and joining 25 resorts in offering the Ikon Pass to compete with the likes of Vail has many believing that the resort will surpass the 2016-2017 season numbers of 558,000 skier days.

“I arrived in Jackson in ’95 when we did 295,000 visits,” said Jerry Blann, the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort’s president, who is retiring this year. “I’m honored to have been here for 23 seasons, it’s been an unbelievable run. Some would say I planned it to leave this way, but there were things working to our advantage.”


JHMR sets new record for skier days
By John Spina Apr 10, 2018

Following one of the best closing days in memory, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort reported this was the most successful season in the 53-year history of the resort recording 634,500 skier days.


715,100 ski days set mark at resort
Numbers bring promise that new ways to handle the crowns will be designed before next winter.
By Tom Hallberg Apr 10, 2019

What everyone probably guessed is official: Jackson Hole Mountain Resort had its busiest season ever.
Though closing day was quiet on the slopes, much of the winter was bustling, with 715,100 skier days recorded. A skier day is counted when people scan a ticket or season pass on their first run of the day, and this year’s total was a difference of 80,600 skier days over last year’s, which set the previous record.


I found more recently that Apres Vous and Teton lifts ski well in the morning. There is still some powder in the primary tram-accessed areas in the PM: Hobacks, Expert Chutes, Crags, etc. But Jackson is a bit uncomfortable on weekends.

Skier days and snowfall down, but experience improves
JHMR comes through COVID winters confident about its future in the ski business.
By Penny Nakamura Apr 27, 2022

“It really is a matter of planning, only about 6% of skiers bought daily tickets at the window this season,” said Buckley, who also required IKON and Mountain Collective pass holders to have reservations. “We sold out most weekends after Dec. 19, and the holidays.”
 
tseeb said:
In early Feb 2014 when I caught rides between SLC and Jackson with @skiace and it snowed every day (although it also got warmer), I noticed bigger crowds on Fri and Sat than Thurs and Sun. There is a lot of local population with Mon-Fri jobs. My notes from Sat include "Started with 3 runs on AV, very crowded". I also started with Après Vous on Friday and Sunday (when avalanches on all routes canceled our bus trip to Targhee).
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Agree with this statement a lot. I see this occurring in Telluride too. My brother said great season 2018-19 would have been a whole lot better if storms did not mostly coincide with the weekends. All the locals are out.

Other remote mountains are likely experiencing the same thing. I have done the 10" new gondola line at Revelstoke. Makes Hunter Mountain/Vail/Breckenridge uncrowded. Whitefish I'm sure has a big enough local population to be bad on weekends. Big Sky is a bit of a mess on weekends and forget the tram. Nothing is all that remote anymore. And good snow on the weekends brings the local pass holders out - not so much the vacationers on Ikon/Epic Passes.
 
Here's a dumb question I've always wondered about but never asked.

JH provides their definition of a ski(er) day: a skier day is counted when people scan a ticket or season pass on their first run of the day. Of course, that number indicates how popular the ski area is in attracting clientele: certainly an important criteria, and one can assume that a decent percentage are spending money on-mountain for F&B.

Considering that the figure may be larded up with visits from people on Ikon or Epic, Indy Pass, Powder Alliance, a reciprocal mountain, etc. (in which case actual revenue could be significantly less for each visit) -- without a deep dive into the books how can one get a better idea of the fiscal health of a ski area in addition to just ski(er) days?
 
jamesdeluxe said:
Here's a dumb question I've always wondered about but never asked.

JH provides their definition of a ski(er) day: a skier day is counted when people scan a ticket or season pass on their first run of the day. Of course, that number indicates how popular the ski area is in attracting clientele: certainly an important criteria, and one can assume that a decent percentage are spending money on-mountain for F&B.

Considering that the figure may be larded up with visits from people on Ikon or Epic, Indy Pass, Powder Alliance, a reciprocal mountain, etc. (in which case actual revenue could be significantly less for each visit) -- without a deep dive into the books how can one get a better idea of the fiscal health of a ski area in addition to just ski(er) days?
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That's a bit hard to determine for most privately held ski resorts.

But Vail calculates an overall Effective Ticket Price for their resorts. For Season 2020-21 it was $72.49 (see below table).

And you can calculate revenue per skier from additional services - decided to use FY 2020 (Season 2019-20) numbers due to COVID. But these numbers might still be a bit wonky. Vail FY 2021 Results

Ski School: $14.03 per skier day
Dining: $11.92 per skier day
Rental/Retail $20.05 per skier day

Not sure what was categorized under the 'Other' category, but it is significant.

Other services are netting an additional $46.00 per ski day. So I assume 2:1 revenue ratio of effective ticket price to additional services is close to an industry ratio.

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Just as background, Vail sold 1.2 million Epic Passes for the 2019-20 season, 1.4 million for 2020-21 and 2.1 million for 2021-22 with the price cut.

Average skier visits per season passholder were about 11 a decade ago, 9.9 in 2018-19 and 9.5 in 2020-21 per NSAA annual reports for US ski areas overall. Average ticket yield was $57.80 in 2020-21 per NSAA, though in prior years that number is about $10 more for "extra large" ski areas, right in line with what Vail reported for 2019-20.
jamesdeluxe said:
Considering that the figure may be larded up with visits from people on Ikon or Epic, Indy Pass, Powder Alliance, a reciprocal mountain, etc. (in which case actual revenue could be significantly less for each visit)
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The payments by Vail or Alterra to partner areas are closely held secrets and surely vary by area. I would suspect in particular for the "Base Plus" surcharge Ikon areas (Aspen, Jackson, Alta starting next season) those payments are not trivial.

Starting in 2019 NSAA has a category for "Frequency Product." defined as
pre-paid ticket products that are valid for set number of non-consecutive days of use throughout the season
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Mountain Collective and Indy Pass fit the precise definition. I'm suspicious of data quality here because in aggregate NSAA reported only about 4% of 2020-21 ticket sales being "Frequency Product," with a max of 5.4% in the Rocky Mountain region. I suspect an Ikon day at AltaBird is being reported in the "Season Pass" category when it's better characterized as "Frequency Product." I also wonder if my 22 Ikon days would be classified as 12 days per passholder in the Pacific Southwest and 10 days in Rocky Mountains rather than total passholder use of 22 days.

I've asked the Frequency Product question twice and received no reply.
 
ChrisC said:
Whitefish I'm sure has a big enough local population to be bad on weekends.
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It's been getting worse, and I never ski Saturdays, but the local population are churchgoers, so Sundays are good until maybe 1. As a passholder, that works out fine. There's a new 6 pack going in which should make a huge difference.
 
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ChrisC said:
Other services are netting an additional $46.00 per ski day.
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Guessing: sightseeing lift rides, tubing, mtn coasters, childcare for infant/toddlers, zip lines, nordic or snowshoeing, etc... all sorts of other options offered at various resorts, but especially so the larger ones.
 
I have only seen the press release from NSAA for 2022, but skier visits set a record of 61.0 million despite an 86% snowfall season. The 86% is sort of misleading because December was the big snow month and visitation is driven more by early season snow than total season snow. However, the prior record of 60.5 million was set in the 120% 2007-08 season and tied in the record 131% 2010-11 season.

At any rate aggregate skier visit numbers are finally showing the impact of the multiarea passes and especially the population growth within driving distance of major ski resorts. This was evident by 2020-21, which saw 59.1 million skier visits during an 85% snowfall season with less favorable incidence than 2021-22 and COVID restrictions as well. Overall US skier visits are up about 6 million since the mid-1990's and the entire increase is within the Rocky Mountain region. All other regions are trending flat over that time period with year to year fluctuations mostly due to the snow conditions.
 
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EMSC said:
Guessing: sightseeing lift rides, tubing, mtn coasters, childcare for infant/toddlers, zip lines, nordic or snowshoeing, etc... all sorts of other options offered at various resorts, but especially so the larger ones.
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Maybe it's mostly Parking revenue and they don't want to break it out :)o_O

Yes, there are a lot of alternate ski activities offered at various Vail resorts.
 
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