• Welcome to AlpineZone, the largest online community of skiers and snowboarders in the Northeast!

    You may have to REGISTER before you can post. Registering is FREE, gets rid of the majority of advertisements, and lets you participate in giveaways and other AlpineZone events!

VAIL SUCKS

Mum skier

Active member
Joined
Jan 25, 2021
Messages
148
Points
28

gittist

Active member
Joined
Oct 22, 2019
Messages
257
Points
43

mbedle

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 24, 2013
Messages
1,765
Points
48
Location
Barto, Pennsylvania
It's like buying a non-refundable ticket. They have your money and don't care whether you ever show up or not. I only skied 5 days last year and didn't do the local areas b/c of the COVID policies so they made money (not much but some) on me.
I'm not so sure that they don't care if you show up or not. It's a subscription based business model and having you subscribe each year is really important to Vail. If people buy a pass and at the end of the year they feel like they wasted money, a lot of them are not going to make that mistake again. Also, while much smaller in revenue, they do care about the money people spend at the resorts.
 

cdskier

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 26, 2015
Messages
6,492
Points
113
Location
NJ
I believe that they were just trying to illustrate "world-class" destination ski resorts...
Well in that case, even the northeast resorts of Stowe, Okemo, and Mt Snow shouldn't be called out on that graphic as none of them are considered "destination resorts" by Vail. On another slide pertaining to acquisitions, they refer to all of those northeast resorts as "regional resorts".

1629314232120.png

I also love the term of "irreplaceable" used at various points in the slide deck to refer to their resort network.
 

PAabe

Active member
Joined
Jan 20, 2021
Messages
430
Points
43
Location
Lancaster, PA
OK so I could almost see calling Okemo and Mt. Snow regional despite them being destination places for folks outside of New England, but calling Stowe "regional" is downright insulting as one who skis the east.

Smh at how they labelled pretty much every one of their western resorts and then left the east as a bunch of yellow dots... but then proceeded to list all of the cities around here. Vail cares about the markets, not the skiing
 
Last edited:

mbedle

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 24, 2013
Messages
1,765
Points
48
Location
Barto, Pennsylvania
again ouch!
Come on,
Well in that case, even the northeast resorts of Stowe, Okemo, and Mt Snow shouldn't be called out on that graphic as none of them are considered "destination resorts" by Vail. On another slide pertaining to acquisitions, they refer to all of those northeast resorts as "regional resorts".

View attachment 51821

I also love the term of "irreplaceable" used at various points in the slide deck to refer to their resort network.
Good point and that my friend is call perception... A unbalanced slide serves no good...
 

KustyTheKlown

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 1, 2013
Messages
5,406
Points
113
Location
Brooklyn
LTV (lifetime value) is a common metric for any SaaS business - I work for one. we want to measure the revenue generated by the customer over their entire time using our product, compared to the CAC (cost of acquiring customer). we make cloud software for use in small law firms. and we don't make any money on a 1-2 user firm who only sign on for the initial term. they need to renew to be a profitable deal for us. our LTV is higher than CAC for firms who buy more users - we want every client to renew but we at least aren't eating shit on the 3+ user firms who may only use us for a single term.

vail is also SaaS, but instead of Software as a Service, its Skiing as a Service. its all about that recurring revenue.
 

cdskier

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 26, 2015
Messages
6,492
Points
113
Location
NJ
Come on,

Good point and that my friend is call perception... A unbalanced slide serves no good...
Also love the slide talking about how they have the "top brands" with the high "brand awareness" rankings for their own resorts. Then the footnote says the Brand Awareness rankings are "Based on Vail Resorts survey of destination guests". So you surveyed people that visited your resorts asking them how aware they were of the brand for said resorts? Sure...I'm sure that gives a completely fair and accurate view of the true "brand awareness" of your resorts.
 

BenedictGomez

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 26, 2011
Messages
12,182
Points
113
Location
Wasatch Back
OK so I could almost see calling Okemo and Mt. Snow regional despite them being destination places for folks outside of New England, but calling Stowe "regional" is downright insulting as one who skis the east.

Smh at how they labelled pretty much every one of their western resorts and then left the east as a bunch of yellow dots... but then proceeded to list all of the cities around here. Vail cares about the markets, not the skiing

It reminds me of when you're reading a ski magazine, and it dawns on you that the author has never skied in the east once in his/her life because of something he/she said that is so clearly 100% wrong. Vail is a CO company, and I imagine >80% of its' employees are from west of the Mississippi.

But yeah, they buy eastern resorts for increasing EPIC Pass market share, not because they think the skiing's any good.
 
Top