Vail Resorts skier visitation is down by 2.5% this season-to-date compared to the year prior alongside a 4.1% increase in lift ticket revenue driven by early Epic Pass sales, the company reported Monday during a quarterly earnings call.
With skier visits down and a positive outlook on current snow conditions across the company’s resorts, CFO Angela Korch said she anticipates improved visitation throughout the warmer spring months, though not enough to offset the decline.
The results come amid recent labor negotiations and a 7% increase in Epic Pass prices for the 2025-26 season. The Epic Pass now starts at $1,051, up from $982 the previous year. Lynch said the increase toes an important balance of investments in guest experience and resort access.
Investors questioned whether recent labor agreements would impact the company’s financial outlook. There are seven total unionized workforce units across Vail Resorts’ 37 North American teams, including five ski patrol unions and 2 lift maintenance unions.
With agreements recently settled with Park City Mountain ski patrol, Keystone Ski Resort ski patrol and Crested Butte lift maintenance, Lynch said there has been no significant impact on the company. The labor dispute between Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association and the company lasted 10 months and ultimately settled a $2 base wage increase for first-year patrollers with an average increase of $4 for returning patrollers.
“No, we would not say there is a material impact from the labor contracts that we have negotiated,” said Lynch. “We have also made significant progress in terms of how we manage our labor. Those teams in those contracts are very, very important to us. When we look at the decisions that we’re making on those labor contracts, we are looking at it in totality, across the entire enterprise, and the impact it has.”
The company faced heavy criticism during and following the 13-day ski patrol strike at Park City Mountain during the peak holiday period between Christmas and New Year’s, when limited terrain, large crowds and long lift lines left many guests frustrated.
For all lift ticket holders during this period of Dec. 27 and Jan. 8, the company offered a credit of up to 50% off of their next Epic Pass purchase. Lynch said a main priority has been improving in the guest experience sector, reporting lift lines lasting more than 10 minutes had occurred approximately 3% of the time, including weekends and holidays this quarter, with high guest satisfaction at resorts, excluding Park City Mountain.
“Part of the reason why we immediately took action to provide those guests with a credit is to try to address that, while the resort was open and we did not shut down the resort when the ski patrol went on strike, we did not deliver the whole experience that we would have expected to have given the snowpack and conditions that existed at Park City Mountain,” said Lynch.
Focusing on “earning back guest’s loyalty,” Lynch said the acknowledgment and related action based on guest feedback and concerns are important. Investors also questioned whether this strike and related pass credits would impact company metrics, which Lynch said is too early to tell.
“I think we’ll know more as we go into the past selling cycle, what we’re seeing in terms of the retention of those pass holders, in terms of the cost of the guest recovery. We are not disclosing the specifics on the cost of that, but I would say that it is not material,” said Lynch.
Lynch said the increase to the Epic Pass prices is on par with its value given the experience and investments made.
“It is always threading a needle in understanding the guest behavior, the price elasticity, but also what we’re providing on the pass, the access to the resort, and then the investments that we’ve made,” said Lynch. “So, we feel good about the 7% price increase and where we’re landing on that pass product.”
Despite these challenges, Lynch said that given the current conditions and expectations for visitation improvement, she is optimistic that “on a full-year basis, we will be set up to have a strong selling season going into pass sales for next winter,” she said.