Vail Resorts Reporting Significant Decrease In Skier Visits This Season

Today, Vail Resorts published a news release of ski season metrics comparing the beginning of last season to the beginning of this season.

The reported ski season metrics reflect the company's North American mountain resorts only. However, when a company owns as many resorts as Vail does, these statistics can be analyzed for industry-wide trends extending beyond just Vail's hold on the ski world.

Vail owns many big-name ski resorts including Beaver Creek, Whistler Blackcomb, Breckenridge, Keystone, Park City, Heavenly, Northstar, and Kirkwood.

The important findings?

Season-to-date total skier visits were down 16.2% compared to the prior year season-to-date period.

Surprisingly, Vail explains that they have not suffered financially from this drop in guests at ski resorts across North America.

Season-to-date total lift ticket revenue, including an allocated portion of season pass revenue for each applicable period, was up 2.6% compared to the prior year season-to-date period.

However, revenue from mountain amenities seemed to balance out, as ski school revenue was slightly up, but dining revenue was slightly down.

Specifically, season-to-date ski school revenue was up 5.0% and dining revenue was down 5.8% compared to the prior year season-to-date period.

Rentals were down as well across resorts in North America.  

Retail/rental revenue for North American resort and ski area store locations was down 13.3% compared to the prior year season-to-date period.

Speaking about this year's ski season so far, Chief Executive Officer Kirsten Lynch said, "given the challenging conditions to start the 2023/2024 North American ski season, we are pleased with our season-to-date results and the guest service delivered at our resorts, highlighting the stability provided by our season pass program and the investments we have made in our resorts and employees."

However, Vail Resorts acknowledged the poor conditions at the start of this winter season, saying, "through the holiday period ended January 7th, 2024, conditions across our North American resorts were below average in all regions compared to the strong early season conditions in the prior year period, leading to a decline in both local and destination skier visitation."

"The unfavorable conditions impacted all of our North American resorts, and particularly our (comprising the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast) and Tahoe resorts, which were impacted by limited natural snow and variable temperatures that resulted in delayed openings, reduced terrain offerings, and select resort closure days through the holiday period."

Many skiers did indeed experience these inconveniences, but, as Vail states here, there is only so much resorts can do to offset changing climates and unpredictable weather patterns.

"Although the conditions negatively impacted visitation across our North American resorts, particularly among our local guests, our season pass sales results significantly mitigated the impact of the slower start to the season on overall lift revenue and highlight the stability created by our advance commitment strategy."

In other words, there's no cause for panic: it sounds like Vail's ski resorts may stay open after all.

Best of all, Vail Resorts nodded to the recent snowstorm this last holiday weekend, saying, "the majority of our North American resorts experienced significant snowstorms leading up to and over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, which impacted the guest experience, but also led to recently improved conditions across our resorts."

We're as stoked as Vail on that one.

"We are looking forward to the remainder of the season given the recently improved conditions, the investments we have made to continue elevating the guest experience, and the stability provided by our season pass program."

We're looking forward to the remainder of the season, and hopefully improving conditions, too.

Related: Utah Ski Resorts Bounce Back With 80+ Inch Storm

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