The Journal. - The Snowballing Problems at Vail Resorts

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Vail Resorts is the king of the mountain. But recently, the ski company has been facing issues with overcrowding and labor disputes. WSJ travel reporter Allison Pohle on how Vail Resorts might be a victim of its own success. Further Reading: - Vail Resorts Has an Epic Problem  - Vail Resorts Shareholder Calls for Overhaul, Ouster of Executives Including CEO  Further Listening: - How Target Got Off Target  - A Surprise Turkey and 200 Lemons: Everyday Stories From the Pandemic   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The other day, I caught up with my colleague, Alison Pooley. Lately, she's been writing about the ski industry. Do you ski? I do ski. I learned as an adult though, so I did not grow up skiing. So you don't go out there and like shred the gnar. I don't. I don't go out there and like shred the gnar? I don't. I don't.

Um, I try to embody that though. Like I have an alter ego when I'm skiing called the grade A shredder. And that's me in that persona. Wow. This is definitely going to make it into the podcast. She's finally getting her public recognition. Grade A shredder or Allison as she's more commonly known knows the biggest name in skiing is Vale Resorts. Vale started out as just one resort near its namesake in Colorado, but over the years it's

grown into a behemoth and now owns and operates 42 ski resorts around the world and the company has completely revolutionized the business. Vail markets itself as the experience of a lifetime and it's a premium product. It is a luxury experience where they have created these little mountain villages that are emblematic of what you might see in Switzerland. The trails are immaculately groomed. You have high-speed chair lifts. I mean, I feel like even just like in pop culture,

almost just the name Vale, like I'm going to Vale, is like, ooh, that's a really high-end, classy thing you're gonna go do. Exactly, it's fancy, it's a really high-end, classy thing you're going to go do. Exactly. It's fancy. It's desirable. Vail has amassed a large customer base over the years. But as that customer base has grown, things have gotten a bit icy. And as it turns out, Vail has pioneered a business model that is now really a victim of its own success.

Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knudson. It's Wednesday, February 5th. Coming up on the show, the problems snowballing at Vail Resorts. Bagel? Bagel. Bagel? Bagel.

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Bagel. Bagel. Bagel. Bagel. Bagel. Bagel. Bagel. Bag them. Bagels and Bagels. Available now at your local Cobb's Bread. Mayo, the king of Colorado skiing, extends its reign as number one. For decades, skiing in America was pretty straightforward.

Ski slopes were largely independent operations. For decades, skiing in America was pretty straightforward. Ski slopes were largely independent operations. The business model was pretty simple. You bought a day pass and you went up and down the hill. You would go up to the window at a ski resort, buy a lift ticket for the day. They would give you a tag, you would fasten it to the zipper of your jacket.

I remember kids in high school that skied, like they'd wear their winter coats and it have their like ski pass on it. Yeah. Growing up in Oregon at Mount Hood. Yep. And they would have all those tags to show how many times they went. But it left the resorts themselves in a vulnerable position because how many tickets they were able to sell depended on how good the snow was and how good the season was. So if they had a great year, they were able to invest in the resort and make

some upgrades. If it was a bad snow year and they didn't sell a lot of tickets, that was tough and that meant the next year was going to be difficult in terms of whatever snow making equipment or lift upgrades they were able to do. For most independent ski resorts, which were privately held, this volatility was a headache. But for Vale, it was a big problem. Vale is the only ski resort company in the U.S. that's publicly traded on the stock market. It listed in 1997, meaning the company's sales

have to be publicly disclosed each quarter to investors. And investors don't like volatility. They just want to see growth all the time. So in 2008, Vale came up with a solution. The Epic Pass. So what it did was take five Vale-owned resorts and a partnership with one other resort, put them all on one pass and for the low price of $579, you could ski at any of these six resorts as much as you wanted for the entire season.

Whereas before, if you were buying a season pass, it was for one resort and it was a lot more expensive. It could cost over a thousand dollars, even over fifteen hundred dollars just for one resort. If you're somebody who's skiing 10, 15, 20 days a season and your pass costs five hundred eighty dollars total, then your cost per time skiing is going down. So really, if you think about it, you know, you're getting a lot out of the value of the pass. So at the time that this came out, it was like an incredible deal.

It was. -♪ MUSIC PLAYING For consumers, not only was the Epic Pass a good deal at the time, owning a pass meant that if snow conditions were bad at one resort, you could just take your skis or snowboard to one of Vale's other mountains. And over time, Vale kept making its Epic Pass even more epic. The main part of their strategy was buying up smaller ski resorts and putting them on the Epic Pass, and raising the price of the Epic Pass a little bit along the way. So, Vale was really acquiring resorts across the country.

Vale's entire business became about selling the Epic Pass. And at the same time, it dramatically raised the price of a single day pass, which made the Epic Pass look like an even better deal in comparison. So, to just walk up to the window and go ski, it has become exorbitantly expensive. Where today, in this ski season, 2024-2025, it will regularly cost over $300 on a holiday weekend at Park City, at Vale, at the most popular resorts, just for the day. Just for a one-day pass. For a one-day pass for one person.

This is like, got to be one of the most expensive hobbies that exists. It is, and it's gotten more so over time. What did the introduction of the Epic Pass mean for Vail's business? Wall Street loved this for Vail's business, and it was successful. It meant that tens of thousands of people are buying this Epic Pass before the season starts. So Vail is able to grow their revenue, they're able to have the money to buy more ski resorts, but also to improve the ones that they did buy.

So a lot of these resorts were in rough shape before Vale came in. So Vale was able to come in and spend money to make those upgrades and make the resorts better. The Epic Pass revolutionized the ski industry. And by the late 2010s, other ski companies introduced their own versions, in many cases by partnering with other ski resorts. Now, two alternatives are the Icon Pass and the Indy Pass, but neither have been able to reach Vale's scale.

And when the pandemic hit, tons of people caught the skiing bug. And Vale suddenly had a lot more potential customers. It soon became clear that being outside was great. A lot of people who had never skied before wanted to try it. Right, here's the perfect thing I can do when I'm stuck at home, just go outside and ski. Exactly. And all of a sudden it became very desirable to ski.

They all realized this and thought, OK, great. We are going to cut the price of the Epic Pass. It was the first price drop that they had ever did. They wanted to incentivize a lot of new skiers. So this was before the 2021-2022 season. They cut the price to get more people to commit to the season pass in advance. The price of the Epic Pass went from $979 down to $783. And it was a huge hit. A lot of people bought it.

And what was the sort of peak of this business strategy? I think we're it. We have just passed the peak, I believe. Is the down slope going to be a black diamond, a double black diamond, a blue maybe or a green or is that bunny hill? I think there's some moguls. I'm not sure what grade it is yet, though. Remains to be seen, but there are some bumps.

And we're going over those moguls right now. Before we hit those moguls, we're going to take a quick break in the lodge. Looking to simplify? How about the simple sounds of neutral vodka soda with 0g sugar per can for the next 15 seconds. Neutral. Refreshingly simple. After Veil dropped the price of the Epic Pass in 2021, the company saw an avalanche of new customers.

But in some ways, this backfired. All of a sudden, these mountains are becoming super crowded because there's no limit on the number of Epic Passes that are sold. So at this point, you have over 2 million people buying this pass. They don't need to make a reservation, they just show up and that means there are tons of people trying to ski. Vale said the crowding wasn't because more people bought the pass, it was due to a global labor shortage that prevented it from opening all the lifts across Vale's resorts. Regardless, many skiers and snowboarders were not happy.

So on social media, there was a massive backlash. Let's cut the crap. Let's get straight into a hater's guide to veil. There were too many people on the mountain. It strained everything. It strained parking around the areas. There's nowhere to eat. And there were so many people skiing at Vale Resorts that there became a phenomenon known as the epic lift lines.

It just keeps going. It's not 9 o'clock yet. Dude, that is insane. It was also just not what they felt they had paid for. So, you know, you've seen the advertising of all these Vale resorts that, you know, there's one skiers going down and all of a sudden, you know, you're trying to navigate around 15 people just to take one turn.

Mm-hmm. You're paying a lot of money to go to this place, and then you're having a bad time. After bringing in all these new customers, Vale started raising the price of the Epic Pass again. This season, it reached the most expensive it's ever been, at $1,107. Then, at the end of last year, Vail's reputation took another blow. On December 27th, during one of the busiest ski periods of the year, there was a strike at Park City, Utah, Vail's largest resort. Ski patrollers walked off the job in a dispute over wages. A big contract! Do we want it? No!

Do we want it? A big contract! Do we want it? No! So, the ski patrol are getting paid a starting wage of around $21 an hour in Park City. And there were signs that they had, they were holding out saying a burger at the dining hall costs $25. And they're saying, look, we can't even afford

to have lunch on one hour salary here. None of us here are trying to be rich. We are merely trying to live a dignified life and be able to afford things like groceries, child care. During the strike, a significant percentage of runs had to be shut down. But customers said that it wasn't clearly communicated. Vail did insist that the mountain was open, that people could go ski there, and the lifts

were running. Now, when people got there, that was not the experience that they had. They were extremely frustrated. A lot of people pay a lot of money in order to come here. And those people are not getting the experience that they're paying for. I talked to multiple skiers who have spent thousands of dollars to take their family on this vacation

and spent it waiting in line, or even just gave up and said, you know what, we're going to do something else while we're here. We're not going to stand for over an hour trying to get on the mountain. This is just not worth it. The strike ended after 12 days when Vale agreed to increase union member wages by an average of $4 an hour and added other benefits like parental leave. Vale apologized to its customers and offered credits to people whose skiing experience was negatively impacted.

But Vale's labor struggles didn't end with Park City. There have also been issues at Vale's crested butte and Breckenridge locations. The company says it's working to resolve them. Now, for Vale. After years at the top of the mountain, things are sliding downhill. After years at the top of the mountain, things are sliding downhill. This season, for the first time ever, sales of the Epic Pass fell by 2%. And the company's stock has dropped by half since its peak at the end of 2021.

And then, last week, one of the company's minority shareholders publicly called for big changes. Late Apex Partners, is what they're called, published a letter to Vail's board of directors. And in the letter, the shareholders said that Vail's performance over the past five years has been, quote, unacceptable.

It even goes on to say that, quote, the core skiing community has labeled Vail the evil empire, end quote. And in another part, it says that, quote, management's incredibly short-sighted actions have led to lost opportunities and destroyed brand value. The investor also called for Vale's CEO, CFO, and executive chairman to be replaced,

and its dividends to be cut by 80%. an executive chairman to be replaced, and its dividends to be cut by 80%. A Vale Resort spokesperson said the company engages frequently with shareholders and values their feedback. The company attributed the decline in Epic Pass sales to a quote, post-COVID normalization and to light snowfall in some areas. And they said the company still believes

in the Epic Pass model. To turn things around, Vale has been exploring some new ideas. It's trying to get customers to spend more on ski lessons and gear rental, and it's looking to expand its footprint in Europe. It's also cutting costs, and says it plans to shrink its corporate workforce

by 14% over the next two years. So what's Veil's reputation now in the ski industry and amongst skiers? It's... It depends who you ask. People who have gotten into skiing or who are able to ski more because of the Epic Pass say they actually made skiing affordable for me and now I ski all the time and I actually learned how to ski because this pass gave me an incentive to keep getting back out there even when it was hard and now I love it and I take

my family. But among a lot of other skiers there has been this reputation that Vale has made skiing inaccessible by raising the price of the daily lift tickets. So it's harder to go out there and try it and see if you like it when it costs several hundred dollars to do so. Other people say they're driving up the cost of ski lessons, of eating at the lodge, and have changed the character of these local ski resorts they acquire from being a place where it's the local hill, the mom and pop area, where everyone knows each other to something that's

a lot more corporate. All right, Gray Day Shredder. Yeah. Thank you so much for your time. No, thank you. It's been great. That's all for today. Wednesday, February 5th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Denny Jacob. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.