Broomfield, Colorado — For a ski company that just went through a huge crisis, it seems like the skier metrics during that period turned out to be ok.
Today, Vail Resorts announced its early season metrics for the 2024-25 season, which includes the Christmas holiday period. This was the timeframe that the Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association went on strike, resulting in lots of headaches for the Utah ski resort.
The metrics capture the 2024-25 season until January 5th compared to the 2023-24 season through January 7th. For reference, the Park City ski patrol strike officially ended on January 8th (a little over one week ago).
Skier visits this season were down 0.3%. In addition, retail revenue was down 5.4% compared to last season. However, it wasn’t all bad news, as lift ticket revenue was up 4.5%, ski school revenue grew by 1.1%, and dining revenue increased by 6.6%.
As part of the announcement, CEO Kirsten Lynch issued the following statement:
“We are pleased with our season-to-date results, which reflect the stability provided by our season pass program, our investments in the guest experience, and the execution of our mountain operations teams across all of our mountain resorts. Season-to-date results benefited from improved weather conditions, and were impacted by the continued industry demand normalization and the late timing of the Thanksgiving holiday in the current year as expected, along with a shift of destination guest behavior to later in the season. Early season conditions enabled a strong terrain offering and guest experience, which drove improved local visitation relative to the prior year. Through the holiday period, destination guest visitation at our western North American destination mountain resorts was below prior year levels, which we believe was driven by a continued shift in visitation patterns across the ski industry to later in the ski season that increased after challenging early season conditions in the prior year. Ancillary spend per destination guest visit was strong across our ski school and dining businesses, with overall performance reflecting the higher mix of local visitation during the period.
For the remainder of the season, we are expecting improved performance compared to the season-to-date period, with a shift in destination guest visitation, based on our significant base of pre-committed guests, current lodging booking trends, and historical guest behavior patterns. We expect to achieve full year performance within the Resort Reported EBITDA guidance range we reiterated on December 9, 2024. Our guidance assumes a continuation of the current economic environment, industry normalization to pre-COVID guest behavior, normal weather conditions for the remainder of the 2024/2025 North American and European ski season and the 2025 Australian ski season, and the foreign currency exchange rates provided in our original September 26, 2024 guidance.
In addition to the strong start to the winter season, we are pleased to have reached an agreement with the Park City Mountain patrol union that is consistent with the wage structure across all of our mountain resorts. We deeply regret the disruptions caused to our guests during the patrol union strike and are committed to delivering an exceptional and safe experience for our guests, and rebuilding their trust and loyalty.”
We’ll have to see how the rest of the season plays out. The cold weather in the Midwest and Northeast is certainly helping Vail Resorts out, which hasn’t been the case in prior years. It will be interesting to see how the situation in the Park City (i.e. possible cancellations cause by the strike) affects visitation at that ski resort, which is among the most popular ski resorts in the United States.
Image Credits: Vail Resorts
