You ever forget your ski pass at home? You make it all the way to the mountain, get all your gear on, and realize you don’t have that little plastic card with your beautiful face on it? Now you gotta wait in line at the ticket booth and hope they’re willing to print you a new one with little hassle. It’s a pain in the butt, no doubt about it. Well, that may, soon, be a problem of the past!
Vail Resorts recently announced their plans to put ski tickets and season passes on guests’s phones, allowing guests to skip waiting for a pass to come in the mail or the ticket lines. Passes and tickets would be activated on one’s phone and, using something called “Bluetooth Low Energy“, individuals would be able to scan their way onto the ski lift without having to touch their device.
Vail Resorts intends to test the technology through the 2022/23 ski season with plans to roll-out the feature to guests in the 2023/24 season. The company hopes to both make the ski experience easier for guests and reduce waste from the plastic RFID cards currently used.
Physical passes will not be completely eliminated from production, so guests who still want or need a plastic RFID pass will still be able to get one, even as the digital passes are made available.
“As a leader in the ski industry, Vail Resorts has a long track record of investing in technological innovations to improve the guest experience, including its EpicMix app, Express Lift Ticket pick-up, and transparent lift line wait time reporting.” – Vail Resorts News Release
Image Credit: Vail via Facebook