mister moose
Well-known member
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Wut? This is huge. I'd volunteer for that alone.
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VAIL SUCKS
- Thread starter thebigo
- Start date
The unwritten rule in hospitality is you take care of the help and they take care of business. Shift meals or steeply reduced daily specials. All but resorts should have an employee canteen sorta set up. Some places do but most dont. Cheap pints and break even food. Vegetables are nice too. But if your gonna pay and shit wage and not feed them? Yeah they're gonna eat your food on the sly.
drjeff
Well-known member
Is anyone really surprised given the infatuation with data that not just Vail has, but so many other companies across all spectrums of society these days?
Customer service is more relevant based on what the data from random surveys that few fill out show than the actual physical sight of happy customers these days.
And you know who we have to blame? So many of ourselves and the data driven seemingly ravenous infatuation that many have with trying to reinvent and "modernize" most anything or system that was in place prior to societies addiction to smartphones and the dopamine release that far too many people get from the ability to almost instantaneously get most things from a few moments with on their phones/tablets rather than actually having to go somewhere themselves.
It's like the folks who insist on buying all their ski gear online and then complain about the fit/performance and potentially having to go to a brick and mortar shop and then pay that shop to adjust/properly fit/mount the gear they bought online trying to save a few bucks. The data may drive the pricing, but don't then expect the highest of levels of service when dealing with a website instead of a person
BenedictGomez
Well-known member
They only started lumping them like that in 19/20, and for the life of me the only reason for it I can think of is to intentionally decrease transparency. It's not REALLY a "pass", so there's no reason they simply couldn't break that product out separately, which I clearly think would be more appropriate. Seems odd.
mbedle
Well-known member
Vail offer every employee a $5.00 meal per day and 50% off of additional meals. Free ski passes for employees and their dependents is also pretty nice.
No more dependents pass for Vol Patrol, and $5 off a $16 burg & fries still puts it out of reach for most employees.
Then they refuse to pay for the recertification courses that are required every year.
Do the math. $700 pass/200 hours (20 days) works out to $3.50/hr.
Even my 13yo niece says "You're a doctor... Why would you work for $3.50/hr ????"
I don't really have an answe for her.
The list goes back before Vail to 2010 when the cuts started.
The unionization talks have been in the works for years. Now, it's been kicked up a notch.
Then they refuse to pay for the recertification courses that are required every year.
Do the math. $700 pass/200 hours (20 days) works out to $3.50/hr.
Even my 13yo niece says "You're a doctor... Why would you work for $3.50/hr ????"
I don't really have an answe for her.
The list goes back before Vail to 2010 when the cuts started.
The unionization talks have been in the works for years. Now, it's been kicked up a notch.
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mbedle
Well-known member
I didn't know you were talking about ski patrol. I was talking about employees.
Geoff
Well-known member
Because they live in Texas or Florida. It’s like a week of Disney park pass. The Colorado market doesn’t cater to the locals driving up the hill from metro Denver. They’re targeting people flying in. They want your lodging dollars. Your food & beverage dollars. Your equipment rental dollars. Your ski school and daycare dollars. With a season pass, they also want you back a second time to spend all that money again. It’s not the same market as the drive-to that brown bags it and stays on the cheap in the No Tell Motel 10 miles out.
jimmywilson69
Well-known member
exactly which is why its doesn't work when they push that approach on an eastern mostly drive up/day trip market. A truly smart CEO would have recognized that, but Katz thinks everyone wants to fly to Vail and Whistler.
drjeff
Well-known member
Not so sure about that.... Buy an Epic, get all of the Eastern properties (mention Stowe, Okemo and Mount Snow at the top of the list, names that the few times a year crowd from the East Coast is likely to have heard of) and then dangle the prospect of Vail, Whistler and Park City as options on the same pass, all with a break even point of 5 or 6 days (for many of their properties) and also add on the potential of loding discounts and select food and beverage discounts, and that's the recipe for sure to sell a bunch to the casual skier/rider, which is then likely to get them to spend other $$ at those properties rather than competitors properties.
Do I necessarily like it as someone who skis most weekends at Mount Snow? Nope
I am I hoping that service wise things this will will get a bit more "normal" vs last years COVID season? Yes
Will I likely be dissapointed in some of the operational decisions Vail chooses to make at my home hill? Yup
Will a bunch of us sound like old farts talking about the "good old days" soon as the data driven crowd continues to take over the ski industry? 100% certain of that
FBGM
Well-known member
I just love how there is now 135 pages of Vail hate.
dblskifanatic
Active member
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- May 24, 2019
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- 43
That is the essence of New England skiing - why they say if you can ski NE you can ski anywhere!
dblskifanatic
Active member
- Joined
- May 24, 2019
- Messages
- 767
- Points
- 43
I buy gear on line and get binding mounted locally - does not cost a lot. Online purchases are fine if you know what you want and understand what you are getting. If you are online guessing then that is bad on that person. Our kids, my wife and I have never regretted any online purchases! I would rather spend a day online researching than driving around to several shops to repeat myself. I an certainly not going into one shop and trusting their prices and staff - I would want second opinions and as a result I trust my research.,
I chuckled as I received these two items at the same time in the mail yesterday.
One place I'm spending money with without even being there. The other I'm costing them money (albeit pennies) with no intentions of going there until major changes in operating philosophies occur.
One place I'm spending money with without even being there. The other I'm costing them money (albeit pennies) with no intentions of going there until major changes in operating philosophies occur.
Attachments
I think they are evil and do recognize that. Their plan is to run the eastern resorts out of business so people will have to fly out west to ski.
They're starting with NH.
By the sounds of this, I’m guessing that Vail did not entertain the proposal for a purchase of wildcat?
drjeff
Well-known member
Probably so, and I am guessing that if true, not very many people should be surprised. If they (Vail) were going to do something with selling off of any of their resorts, my hunch is that it would be prior to when the following seasons EPIC's go on sale, that way they won't have to go through the issues of taking resort options away from a product they're selling, as even with Wildcat, which I am guessing not a huge amount of EPIC passholders use exclusively at Wildcat all season long, they'd have the issue of some folks, likely filing a lawsuit against them (Vail) for not living up to what they were sold on, and you'd also have the situation with Wildcat, if sold, where you'd have some folks, who bought an EPIC pass, wanting to be comp'd a Wildcat pass, and then the new owners's wouldn't see the pass revenue from those folks in year 1.
Easy to add more resorts to a pass once sales have begun and not have potential lawsuit issues, much tougher to take resorts away from a pass offering once sales have started and not create potential issues
jimmywilson69
Well-known member
maybe I'm not so much a cynic on this thought, but why would they want these areas to close? they would undoubtedly loose thousands of passholders which = $$$
sure they want us to go to their flagship resorts, but closing the feeder hills is biting off the hand that feeds.
I agree. They very well may neglect those areas and run them as lean as possible, but they're not stupid enough to think that if they closed the eastern resorts they could simply get enough of those people to go west to make up for the lost revenue generated by the eastern areas.
Are there any stats anywhere on how many people ski exclusively in the east vs travel west at least once a season? I'm sure Vail has data from their own resorts on this subject, but it would be interesting numbers to know overall. I'd bet far more people ski the east exclusively vs travel to multiple regions every year.
Plus, if Vail closed eastern resorts, what makes anyone think people would go west instead? There's plenty of non-Vail resorts in the east. Many people would just go to those resorts instead.
(I'm also thinking Jim's comment may have been a bit facetious though).
jimmywilson69
Well-known member
for sure but its worth discussing and shows just how bad vail sucks that people will actually discuss this topic.
Unfortunately they'll get my money as long as I want to ski 4 miles from home... so I'm really part of the problem not the solution.
