Vail Resorts Report 12.5% Increase in Skier Visits and 19.4% Revenue Increase in Epic Pass Sales

[ThatGuy]

Vail Resorts Report 12.5% Increase in Skier Visits and 19.4% Revenue Increase in Epic Pass Sales - SnowBrains

Vail Resorts yesterday shared a few ski season metrics comparing this season to the 2020/21 season. Total skier visits were up 12.5%

snowbrains.com

Might be a little while before the evil empire falls…

 

[ThatGuy]

“Those extra skiers also spent even more money in resorts with ski school revenue up 53%, retail/rental up 39%, and dining revenue up a massive 73.2%”

 

[cdskier]

I hate to say it, but numbers comparing 2020/2021 to 2021/2022 are somewhat pointless. 2020/2021 was heavily impacted and limited by COVID restrictions. This year those were largely gone so of course the numbers this year will far surpass last year's numbers.

The more important number will be to see how 2022/2023 pass sales do compared to this year's sales. Vail's press release says they won't release any preliminary numbers on that until their June earnings release as they want to wait until the Memorial Day sales deadline to have comparison data year over year.

 

[crystalmountainskier]

“Those extra skiers also spent even more money in resorts with ski school revenue up 53%, retail/rental up 39%, and dining revenue up a massive 73.2%”

It’s a deceiving comparison as the Covid year shut many anciliary profit centers down.

 

[trackbiker]

Also, the increase in skier visits is partly (or possibly mainly) due to the additional areas added to their portfolio.

 

[RichT]

Dining revenue up probably because a cup of soup was almost $13, not to mention every other food item.

 

[slatham]

Skier visit analysis adjusts for purchased areas, notably excludes Seven Springs etc.

YTD visits up 12.5%, which is a pretty big increase in and of itself and goes a long way to explain crowding, especially given generally below average snow in most regions. But this underestimates the crowing effect due to the slow start to season throughout the US. Note that in mid-January they were reporting only about 2%increase. So the increased visits were applied to a smaller number of days (shorter season) which exacerbated the crowding issues. One could also argue that the increase further focused on certain resorts.

The key metric, which we will likely never get, is how many visits on X day at Y resort vs pre-covid normal? Or peak visits at X resort vs prior peak, again pre-covid.

 

[abc]

The key metric, which we will likely never get, is how many visits on X day at Y resort vs pre-covid normal? Or peak visits at X resort vs prior peak, again pre-covid.

It will show increase too.

If you buy up all the neighboring mountain and shut them down (or not make snow), you'll "increase" visit to the remaining ones that are open. Just saying...

 

[Tonyr]

My observation was that it definitely felt less crowded over the 21/22 season versus the 20/21 season. I guess alot of that had to do with lift capacity from 1 year to the next though. Atleast that is what they say.

 

[Kingslug20]

All that will matter is if the stock price climbs..if it does..they won't give a shit about anything else.. and certainly not all the complaining about them..if the soup tastes like shit but you sell a million dollars of it..guess the taste doesnt matter.

 

[drjeff]

My observation was that it definitely felt less crowded over the 21/22 season versus the 20/21 season. I guess alot of that had to do with lift capacity from 1 year to the next though. Atleast that is what they say.

Agree with your feeling that it didn't feel as crowded to me as well this season.

And great point about how the loading of lifts at full capacity this season vs last year likely played a bit into this

 

[Kingslug20]

Try Stowe on a Saturday...

 

[Smellytele]

Try Stowe on a Saturday...

No thanks.
Try putting bamboo shoots under your finger nails.

 

[Kingslug20]

Or stepping on a lego piece.......ouch.

 

[NYDB]

Parking revenue is up!

 

[HowieT2]

I'm no mathematician but pass revenue up almost 20% while the cost of the pass went down means they sold a lot more passes.

 

[cdskier]

I'm no mathematician but pass revenue up almost 20% while the cost of the pass went down means they sold a lot more passes.

I just looked back at this article and the original press release from Vail...the article is poorly written. It isn't actually pass revenue being up almost 20%. It is overall lift ticket revenue that is up for the season to date period year over year (which includes an allocated portion of season pass revenue). So from that number alone, we don't know how much of the revenue really came from season passes vs how much came from more lift tickets being sold for some reason.

Although from previous press releases we do know that Vail said they sold around 2.1M "pass products" for this year (which includes the Epic Day passes) which was a pretty substantial increase of about 700K from the prior year. What sales look like for this coming year will be the real interesting part. I don't see them maintaining that level of growth. But I also don't see them having a substantial drop in sales either...

 

[thetrailboss]

Parking revenue is up!

Yeah that will be next year's headline.

I just read that Park City's Development Department placed a restriction on PCMR's land use permit to require the proceeds from the $25.00 per car per day charge to go to transportation programs and work.

 

[AdironRider]

Vail is smarter than you and knows who the customer is. It's a big club, and you aren't in it.

 

[djd66]

Yeah that will be next year's headline.

I just read that Park City's Development Department placed a restriction on PCMR's land use permit to require the proceeds from the $25.00 per car per day charge to go to transportation programs and work.

This should be the norm everywhere if they are leasing public land and charging for parking. I actually can get my head around this - if they took the money and spent on things that will solve the actual parking problem and not just a revenue generator.