Spot on. Snowbird DOES own all of its restaurants and MOST of its lodging. There are timeshares, but those are kind of owned by the mountain. So yes, Snowbird THINKS that having people travel and stay in higher volumes will yield more money. But the thing that may be skewing their figures is that there are A LOT of Utahans who are IKON passholders but DON'T stay overnight or eat, buy souvenirs, etc.
Alta ONCE owned and operated the Goldminer's Daughter. I believe that they have leased that out. Alta once again owns and operates all of its on-site restaurants with the exception of Alta Java and the small cafe at Goldminers. They operate Albion Cafeteria and maybe the cafeteria at the Goldminer's daughter. You are right that a larger portion of Alta's revenues are directly tied to season passholders who are largely local. So crowding made those folks upset and caused some to leave.
As to pricing: I bet that they adopted the dynamic pricing model. More demand, higher prices. I can see them adopting that MO like Ticketmaster because Snowbird thinks of themselves as being quite "corporate".
And as to the security issues with the lodges, this is quite troubling but honestly not at ALL a surprise to me. In my 12 years, Snowbird is QUITE dysfunctional and I can completely see them having no clue as to who belongs in their buildings. Yeah they have their own "police" but in my experience they are a joke and have way too much terrain to cover (and their priority is more asset protection). As someone paying that "dynamic price" for a Cliff Room, this would be completely unacceptable to have random folks wandering around the property at all hours. Good for the employee telling your wife, but also quite disturbing that the employees are directly telling guests about this huge security issue instead of reporting it up the chain or doing something themselves. If I had to guess, management is either incompetent, way overworked, or just does not care because they are moving to another property after this season.
And, as you said, Snowbird is relying on the "churn" of visitors coming and going to keep them in the black and they lean on the fact that yes they have an awesome mountain in a good location with usually good snow. Recruiting and retaining talented, let alone competent, staff is not at all a priority (ala Amazon). Repeat customers are few and far between. Hope springs eternal that things will change, but for now I just go and ski and leave.
