VAIL SUCKS

[IceEidolon]

Stowe should not have a housing problem as you can live within an hour affordably..
Its pay..snowmaking is a brutal job...
They better figure this out...this shit wont last too many seasons...

Nobody's going to work snowmaking hours for snowmaking wages and drive an extra two hours in good weather every day. That's a recipe for car wrecks. I've seen people drive a little over 30 minutes and not burn out.

 

[Kingslug20]

Then how has stowe employed snow makers in the past?
Did all the ones making decent money quit?
On the way there i pass a lot of employees waiting for the bus...where are they staying?

 

[abc]

This doesn’t align at all with what I’ve been hearing. My stepdaughter manages a retail store on the main drag in Vail Village close to the covered bridge and the parking structure. Her store smashed every sales record last week. Like 2x what the store has ever done in December. Her boyfriend is a waiter & bartender at a nearby high end restaurant. Same thing there. All the local businesses are paying really well to hire strong staff and they’re printing money.

I'd say 25% to 30% of the stores in Vail Village were closed over Christmas time which is the busiest time of the year for retail. It was a ghost town Christmas Eve in Vail Village, we were shocked. We also had dinner reservations canceled on two separate occasions due to lack of staff and Covid outbreaks.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

I've seen it first hand in a lot of places. 20-30% stores closed. The remaining stores had 20-30% extra crowds.

It felt a lot more though. Couldn't find a place to eat. Have to push my way through the waiting crowd just to pick up my take outs.

 

[IceEidolon]

Then how has stowe employed snow makers in the past?
Did all the ones making decent money quit?
On the way there i pass a lot of employees waiting for the bus...where are they staying?

Does the bus serve night shift employees?

I know Stowe has some housing, but not enough for everyone. They've probably burned through a lot of the actual local locals, people who grew up in the area. So they're left trying to get people to move to the area, fight AirBnBs for lodging, and work for less than a warehouse job or a fast food gig where the perk is a $500 pass.

 

[thetrailboss]

Again.....

Epic crowds are colliding with epic labor shortages at ski areas

A labor shortage at ski areas, including Vail Resorts' 34 resorts, has left them understaffed during the holidays and omicron surge.

coloradosun.com

 

[Smellytele]

Again.....

Epic crowds are colliding with epic labor shortages at ski areas

A labor shortage at ski areas, including Vail Resorts' 34 resorts, has left them understaffed during the holidays and omicron surge.

coloradosun.com

Why did you post it again?

 

[thetrailboss]

Why did you post it again?

Because folks are addressing issues raised in the article without seeing the original post.....also I would have figured that it would have generated some conversation.

 

[Kingslug20]

Ok
Omicron
No more locals
Shit pay
No housing
Now what? Doesnt sound very solvable at this point..at least not for vail..

 

[thetrailboss]

Ok
Omicron
No more locals
Shit pay
No housing
Now what? Doesnt sound very solvable at this point..at least not for vail..

Well, the article I posted spoke directly to the NE Resorts and what Vail did. That was to lay off the management of those resorts and rely on an app to manage the rank and file employees. That didn't work out too well...combined with losing the institutional knowledge that management had for each area.

 

[IceEidolon]

Pay better than fast food entry level wages and you'll get some slots filled. Make it a career path and you can keep a cadre of skilled snowmakers and equipment operators for summer maintenance. Between the two options you can get better ryeayear over year retention and stop having to retrain your whole crew every year, right when you need everyone at their best for opening day.

'Course, this is paying money for intangibles, so naturally Vail won't.

 

[Smellytele]

Ok
Omicron
No more locals
Shit pay
No housing
Now what? Doesnt sound very solvable at this point..at least not for vail..

Shit pay is the easiest to fix.

 

[PAabe]

Vail should be paying $20/hr min all positions all ski areas if they want to have any hope of fixing any of those problems. That is now the going rate. And maybe at least try to appear like they care about skiers and their staff a little bit

Although at this point they have probably lost any of the labor pool that was available to begin with and have already lost so much of the institutional knowledge. Call it a wash for this season. Once everyone else starts to open up with the cold temps I think it will really expose the worst yet to come MLK and Presidents'

 

[thetrailboss]

Vail should be paying $20/hr min all positions all ski areas if they want to have any hope of fixing any of those problems. That is now the going rate. And maybe at least try to appear like they care about skiers and their staff a little bit

Although at this point they have probably lost any of the labor pool that was available to begin with. Call it a wash for this season. Once everyone else starts to open up with the cold temps I think it will really expose the worst yet to come MLK and Presidents'

So for the board, does anyone know any non-Vail resorts that ARE paying this amount to employees? I know for a fact one POWDR resort that is not and is using Vail's low-ball rates to justify their ridiculously low pay. As a result said POWDR Resort has been limping along with WAY less terrain open than usual and almost entirely new staff in many positions. In other words, since Vail delivers a shit product POWDR thinks it can too.

 

[Kingslug20]

The way i see it is...we could end up going back to relying on natural snow..which is impossible...
Wonder how long it will take until people realize that paying to ski a place that is 30% open...sux..and start boycotting...
Or will we all just settle for what we get...

 

[2Planker]

Again.....

Epic crowds are colliding with epic labor shortages at ski areas

A labor shortage at ski areas, including Vail Resorts' 34 resorts, has left them understaffed during the holidays and omicron surge.

coloradosun.com

No way...

Alex Kaufman was SR's Snow Reporter ages ago, maybe 20 years ago.
Then he moved to PR, and was involved w/ the first SR "official" Blog/Forum.
AK moved west, and SR bailed on the "official" Forum.

 

[thebigo]

So my Outback is in the shop getting an oil leak fixed under extended warranty and they gave me a Forester as a loaner.

Only company that has screwed me over worse than vail is Subaru. I would recommend you spend tomorrow at a Toyota dealership.

 

[PAabe]

Good luck I recommend just carrying several quarts of oil and refilling as needed

I am on my 2nd engine the 1st one blew up after the gaskets already had been replaced. To be fair almost 200k miles at this point

 

[ss20]

So for the board, does anyone know any non-Vail resorts that ARE paying this amount to employees? I know for a fact one POWDR resort that is not and is using Vail's low-ball rates to justify their ridiculously low pay. As a result said POWDR Resort has been limping along with WAY less terrain open than usual and almost entirely new staff in many positions. In other words, since Vail delivers a shit product POWDR thinks it can too.

lol the $20/hr thing again....

No one working unskilled labor in a ski area is making that. Maybe some guys in Aspen, Jackson, and CA that have been there a few years but aren't yet supervisors in their field.

Higher wages in ski towns is NOT the answer. Pay lifties and rental techs $25/hr and housing costs go up. There is no good solution. It sucks. The best "solution" I believe is going back to $1,000+ season passes. Stifles guest demand a bit, and incentivizes ski bums to work for the resort to earn that pass. Right now with passes being so cheap it's not worth working part-time at crap pay within the resort to earn the pass.

The ski industry has a CRITICAL supply/demand issue....writing has been on the wall for 15+ years...it's finally here. 10% less guests and 10% more employees would fix everything but the accounting sheets. The revenue brought in per guest can grow though to compensate that. Guests WANT to put their kids in ski school each day but can't because not enough instructors. Guests WANT to sit down after skiing and buy a few beers but won't because the line is 30 minutes+. Guests WANT to return to their luxury hotel and get a massage but can't because they're understaffed. @Tonyr 's story of restaurants cancelling on him bc lack of staff doesn't surprise me.

 

[ss20]

Only company that has screwed me over worse than vail is Subaru. I would recommend you spend tomorrow at a Toyota dealership.

I am still amazed Subaru exists and people eat them up like hot cakes. I have NO IDEA how they escaped the gasket/oil issues the past 20 years on/off and maintained a good quality reputation in the mainstream. The failure rate is just staggering.

 

[Pez]

more money is the answer. you can talk about the perk of a 1200 dollar season pass, but if you can't afford to eat or put gas in your car then what's the point?