How Inexpensive Should Skiing Be?

[Black Phantom]

Given all the talk about skiing on the cheap, discount tickets, etc, where should a lift ticket be priced at? How low of a price point would you like to see?

Should a ticket be a loss leader for other services? With these steep discounts, are you purchasing lodging, food and beverage, equipment, etc with your savings at these locations?

Is the desire for skiing on the "cheap" actually a negative force causing areas to make additional sacrifices and cuts that could be put into providing increased snow making and trail access?

Or is this a good thing for the business?

 

[oakapple]

Given all the talk about skiing on the cheap, discount tickets, etc, where should a lift ticket be priced at? How low of a price point would you like to see?

Never minding what I'd like to see, my sense is that skiing is efficiently priced. The market is transparent: every mountain knows what the others are charging; and most skiers compare prices. What’s more, if you live in the Northeast and can get to one mountain, you can probably get to many. If a mountain is too expensive, skiers can gravitate to competitors relatively easily. That doesn't mean they like the price, only that competition is probably making it relatively efficient.

Should a ticket be a loss leader for other services? With these steep discounts, are you purchasing lodging, food and beverage, equipment, etc with your savings at these locations?

I haven't seen any evidence that resorts are using lift tickets as loss leaders. In general, if the lift ticket is expensive, then everything is relatively expensive.

Is the desire for skiing on the "cheap" actually a negative force causing areas to make additional sacrifices and cuts that could be put into providing increased snow making and trail access?

This, too, is a trade-off that I think most mountains make efficiently. Cheaper lift tickets attract more visitors in the short-term, but they provide less capital for the improvements that attract more visitors in the long-term. Here too, the market is transparent. Every resort knows what the others are doing to improve. They all have close-to-perfect information about where the market is going. Some, of course, will make mistakes, allowing others to thrive.

 

[deadheadskier]

In the hotel business, the goal is to have the highest 'REVPAR' (revunue per occupied room).

I'm sure there is a similar term for ski areas and deals are offered based upon achieving those goals.

I spent $300 on a pass at Ragged last season. I probably spent the same in their F&B and retail operations. I spent roughly an additional $600 on lift tickets and other non-travel related skiing expenses going to other areas last season.

My typical goal for a season is for my lift ticket expenses to average in the neighborhood of $30 a day. I'd say I spend about $20/day on top of that in F&B.

 

[jrmagic]

^

I think that is a pretty fair assessment. I'd say I'm around $30 a day as well. Me and my 2boys have passes at Magic that we get a lot of use out to lower our daily cost significantly which allows us to take some midweek days to hit K or Sugarbush to give them some variety and keep them interested and not feel like I am hemmoraging cash. Although we ahve a condo at the hill, I do spend several hundred dollars in F&B over the course of a season.

 

[St. Bear]

I haven't seen any evidence that resorts are using lift tickets as loss leaders. In general, if the lift ticket is expensive, then everything is relatively expensive.

I always thought thats the way it was in the Western resorts. They make their money from food and lodging, and basically throw in the lift tickets.

 

[millerm277]

Not counting passes, I generally aim for my average ticket price to be about ~$45 a day, with probably an additional $5-15 spent on F&B/retail overall per day.

Overall, this is pretty reasonable I think, and about correct. The rare times I have to pay $75 window prices when I decide to go somewhere at 4pm the day before a storm is coming, is offset by the random discounts/freebies I pick up or otherwise acquire during the year, and the ski+stay discounts I usually take advantage of.

 

[Highway Star]

In the hotel business, the goal is to have the highest 'REVPAR' (revunue per occupied room).

I'm sure there is a similar term for ski areas and deals are offered based upon achieving those goals.

The metrics in question is (revenue) Yield per Skier Visit, and Ticket Yield per visit. Overall yield is all revenue, sometimes including mountain owned lodging. Ticket yield is from tickets, passes, etc.

Spend some time googing and you'll find some pretty interesting info. SAM calculates national yields based on ski resort size, for example, and it's interesting to see who is above and below that.

 

[oakapple]

I haven't seen any evidence that resorts are using lift tickets as loss leaders. In general, if the lift ticket is expensive, then everything is relatively expensive.

I always thought thats the way it was in the Western resorts. They make their money from food and lodging, and basically throw in the lift tickets.

There isn't anywhere online that I can easily find food prices at ski resorts, but here are a few examples of the one-day adult lift ticket:
Alta: $69
Alta + Snowbird: $88
Vail: $70
Mammoth: $72
Big Sky: $81

Go ahead and look up the multi-day rates, but I wouldn’t say they’re throwing in the lift tickets. Lodging is more complex to evaluate, because at the larger resorts there is always such a wide range of options.

 

[4aprice]

I've never sat down and figured out what I pay per time with my pass. I probably should but I certainly get my moneys worth. I like to sample other places too. Prices in the 30-50 range depending on the mountain are certainly enticing to me. I got Hunter last year on a weekday for $35 with a coupon which was well worth it. I cringe when I see the walkup rate for a Holiday/Saturday at some of these places. It's enough to keep me from going up north during any vacation period this year.

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ

 

[wa-loaf]

There isn't anywhere online that I can easily find food prices at ski resorts, but here are a few examples of the one-day adult lift ticket:
Alta: $69
Alta + Snowbird: $88
Vail: $70
Mammoth: $72
Big Sky: $81

Did Vail drop their prices? Two years ago the walk-up rate was close to a hundred bucks.

 

[St. Bear]

There isn't anywhere online that I can easily find food prices at ski resorts, but here are a few examples of the one-day adult lift ticket:
Alta: $69
Alta + Snowbird: $88
Vail: $70
Mammoth: $72
Big Sky: $81

Go ahead and look up the multi-day rates, but I wouldn’t say they’re throwing in the lift tickets. Lodging is more complex to evaluate, because at the larger resorts there is always such a wide range of options.

Those range of options is what I'm talking about.

This is the 2nd lodging deal advertised by Mammoth. Sure sounds like throwing in the lift ticket to me.

Stay slopeside for as low as $99 per person per night*

Start your ski season off with this great value - make First Tracks to Mammoth this November. Stay two or more nights and receive a lift ticket for each person, for each night stayed. Book early for the best rates.

 

[Smellytele]

With 5 of us never stay at a resorts lodging. Even the $99 deals end up not being a deal with all of us. Rarely eat their food besides a rare apres snack and drink for the kiddos and a beer or 2 for the wife and I. We have a free season passes to a small mountain and only like to spend on average $35 per ticket at other areas.

 

[oakapple]

Vail: $70

Did Vail drop their prices? Two years ago the walk-up rate was close to a hundred bucks.

I looked too quickly. That $70 rate is for opening week. It quickly rises to $94 during the core ski season, and as high as $99 during Christmas week.

Those range of options is what I'm talking about.
This is the 2nd lodging deal advertised by Mammoth. Sure sounds like throwing in the lift ticket to me.

Stay slopeside for as low as $99 per person per night*

Start your ski season off with this great value - make First Tracks to Mammoth this November. Stay two or more nights and receive a lift ticket for each person, for each night stayed. Book early for the best rates.

That’s an incentive offered only during the very early part of the season, to entice skiers to visit when they ordinarily wouldn’t, much like Vail’s $70 lift tickets in mid-November.

 

[Geoff]

The Colorado destination resorts are all over $90.00 at peak season. That is why you buy a Colorado Pass or an Epic Pass. They're priced so you barely break even over a week vacation compared to a multi-day ticket. It gets you to come back again for a long weekend and spend money on lodging, retail, and food & beverage.

Utah pricing at the three Park City resorts is comparable to Colorado I-70 / Aspen pricing. AltaBird and Brighton/Solitude have little lodging so they're priced as drive-to ski areas in a competitive market.

In the east, the larger ski areas are weekend-only and have to fund snowmaking. If they don't get a $50.00/day yield on their skier visits, it's tough to fund all the fixed costs like labor, electricity, insurance, and snowmaking. If everybody paid $25.00 or $30.00/day, those places would go out of businness. NELSAP is stuffed full of smaller ski areas that prove that out.

 

[rocojerry]

Slightly more than cost.

If there was some transparency in the cost, I may be more able to justify paying x$. Otherwise, I just keep an eye out for the best deals I can find, or suck it up when the snow is good and I want to go.

 

[KevinS]

Based on how bad the lines are on weekends, they obviously aren't charging too much, people are paying the weekend/holiday walk up rates in large numbers.

I personally would rather see more variable pricing. I can't believe that midweek is only 20% less than weekend. Make the weekend more expensive and the midweek cheaper and you might move some of that crowd from Saturday and Sunday to Wednesday. And holidays should be more expensive than the average weekend, not the same.

I also think that food prices should be lower even if it means higher ticket prices.

The end result of this is that ticket prices for weekends and holidays would be significantly higher, but you know what you are getting into. Have a family of 4 and want to go skiing? You probably don't want to do it on a holiday, but now you might be able to do 5 days instead of 3 and it is worth taking a week.

Have the money to go on the weekend despite the price increase? Sweet, now there are fewer people at the mountain and you get more for your money.

Don't have the money for holiday weekends but want to go on regular weekends? At least you are paying the same as before.

Broke as a joke but have the weekdays off? Now weekdays are super cheap.

It might also push the "two days a year" crowd off the busiest weekends and onto cheaper weekends which would even out the crowds.

As someone who goes a lot, I'd rather have the crowds even then the place be empty most of the time except for a few holidays a year when it is jam packed. The mountain probably would prefer that too.

I'd also that at the end of the day once you figure in gas, food, and lodging, the season pass is roughly 50% of my ski budget for the year. Finding a better place to stay or carpooling or adding an extra two weekends to the season change my cost per day signifcantly.

 

[oakapple]

Slightly more than cost.

If there was some transparency in the cost, I may be more able to justify paying x$.

People tend to forget that ski resorts are businesses that must earn a healthy return on the owners’ capital, or risk having that capital deployed to other, more profitable uses. With a few notable exceptions (Mad River Glen, some family-owned places), ski resorts cannot operate at just “slightly more than cost.” If someone invests millions in a new HSQ or snowmaking equipment, they are entitled to a healthy return, or their capital will go elsewhere.

 

[dmc]

I've always heard that Ski areas make a killing on selling booze

 

[riverc0il]

"Should" is a value judgment. The beautiful thing about skiing right now is there are plenty of places to go if you disagree with what certain areas are charging. Skiing should have an expense associated with it to pay for the demands of the skier base of any given mountain. A high enough cost to cover expenses, reinvestment into the mountain, and a profit for the owners. Same as any business. Some areas will charge whatever the market will bear--what ever skiers are willing to pay for that mountain or experience. Mountains can make their money through a variety of ways... maximizing highest revenue per skier visit, loss leader tickets to make money on lodging, F&B, etc. Whatever. If skiing gets too expensive, eventually skiers will ski less and fewer new skiers will take up the activity and stick with it. Skiing should be inexpensive enough that the longevity of the activity is not in jeopardy.

 

[deadheadskier]

Skiing should be inexpensive enough that the longevity of the activity is not in jeopardy.

While I'm not sure price is the culprit, one might say the longevity of the activity is somewhat in jeopardy.

Same amount of skiers and riders today as 30 years ago, yet a massively larger population.

Then you've got the whole Nelsap thing going on. Thankfully that appears to have stabilized outside of a handful of annual additions.