Jimmy Carter was in the White House the last time an adult season pass at a major Colorado resort cost $200. But that was the effect of the season pass deals whereby four people—friends or family—will ski or ride all season long for $795 or less at Winter Park, Copper Mountain and the Keystone-Breckenridge-A-Basin (KAB) trio.
Timeline
August 12—Copper Mountain announces $795 season pass for the traditional family (two legally married adults and two dependent children). Little media attention.
August 27—Vail Resorts announces the same pricing and restrictions for the KAB Pass (Keystone, Arapahoe Basin and Breckenridge), additionally stipulating that it must be purchased at the Gart Sports Sniagrab [bargains backwards] sale in Denver. Media uptick.
September 2—Winter Park announces the same pricing and extends the offer to any group of four, including non-traditional families and unrelated friends Media attention escalates.
September 5—Copper matches Winter Park and drops price by $100. Mega-lines develop at Sniagrab. Garts complains of traffic jams. Media has field day.
September 6—Vail matches “four unrelated adults” offer. Garts relaxes as many skiers and riders appear to be parlaying their lift-ticket savings into equipment and clothing purchases.
September 15—Offers end.
More reminiscent of price wars waged by airlines or gas stations, the frenzy resulted in unofficial estimates of 90,000 passes sold for some $157 million. And for once, media attention was not focused on the highest single-day ticket at the window. (For the record, it’s $61 at Vail and Beaver Creek.)
Resorts didn’t want to release official numbers, but the Denver Post reported that Winter Park, which sold fewer than 3,000 season passes last year, sold 12,500 this year, and that the KAB pass totals went from 10,000 to an estimated 61,000.
“There are positive and negative aspects to this,” said Barb Jennings of Colorado Ski Country USA. “If it brings new people into the sport, or old people back who haven’t skied for years, that’s a great thing. Obviously, it will dilute the revenue stream, but how remains to be seen.”
Front Range skiers and snowboarders are spoiled. Vail is within a two-hour drive from metro Denver, and nine other areas are even closer. Their attitude: lift tickets should be cheap, snow should be deep, lift lines non-existent and highway traffic light. In B-school-speak, the Front Range epitomizes a “price-sensitive market.”
On the other side, resorts had come to count on the steadily increasing skier and rider numbers resulting from a succession of good-to-great snow years, a vital economy and a burgeoning population. Last winter, however, numbers were down, especially at the big resorts. Even though there were logical explanations, managers got worried.
“We sat down last summer and asked ourselves, ‘What are we going to do to get people excited?” recalled Winter Park’s Joan Christensen. “We’ve got high-speed quads, on-mountain restaurants, snowboarding, shaped skis, and still, the market has been flat for a decade.” The “friends” component of their season pass offer, she says, came from a recognition that there are so many singles and non-traditional families in their customer mix. “We didn’t know we’d strike such a nerve,” she added.
Areas hope that the pass frenzy will translate to renewed enthusiasm for skiing and riding, and also to higher total visits. There may even be enough revenues generated from parking, food and beverage, ski tuning, ski school, day care and other sources to offset the loss of lift revenue on the bargain passes.
But there are several possible downsides that managers know they will have to contend with, including increased congestion on already-crowded weekends. Except for Arapahoe Basin, all the combatants have invested millions to upgrade lifts, so uphill capacity isn’t expected to pose much of a problem. But, parking lots, shuttles between the lots and the lifts, rental shops, cafeterias and restrooms are another story. “We don’t know how the facilities will measure up,” acknowledged Vail Resorts’ Paul Witt.
“We’re gearing up to be much busier,” concurred Copper Mountain’s Hilary Fadner, “and we understand that we’ll have to be much more flexible in everything we do. . .We’ll be learning the rules as we go along.”
One thing for sure is that Copper couldn’t have better timed its investment in additional parking, intra-resort shuttle transportation improvements and a new six-place, high-speed lift from the base.
One of the interesting facets of the pass wars was the role of the Internet and word-of-mouth. The consumer target was the Front Range skier, but inevitably some destination skiers managed to get in on the bargains. But most resorts weren’t too concerned. VRI required customers to buy at Sniagrab in Denver. Those without that requirement added reinforcements from other departments to handle phones at the peak of the frenzy. Winter Park’s Christensen said that, “I personally sold a few in South Carolina and Florida. A lot of people from places like Nebraska make two trips to Colorado a year. If they got our pass, they’ll come back to Winter Park instead of Summit County.”
One unanticipated wild card that no one hopes to draw is employment woes, especially now that higher skier and rider visits will create a greater demand for workers. At this writing, major resorts still had not held their big job fairs, but Copper Mountain’s Tracey Baca said that finding part-timers who used to work in exchange for pass privileges would be more difficult.
How did the smaller areas fare while the five front-line Goliaths slugged it out? Some small resorts that had previously enjoyed a significant price advantage were taking hits. Ski Cooper’s $225 early-purchase season pass sales dropped. “There was nothing we could do,” said Cooper’s Anne Dougherty. “We had started selling our passes already.”
Others, like reborn Berthoud Pass, Silver Creek and Loveland, say they didn’t fare badly. While Silver Creek sold not a single pass at Sniagrab, compared to 35 in 1997, April Bonner said that, after the resorts closed their sales, “people who missed out started to call. Silver Creek’s family pass is $560; an individual adult pass is $200.”
Loveland’s Scott Fortner was reconciled: “We’re positioning ourselves on our strengths. We’re close to Denver, we have good snow. We have a new lift and 300 new acres right on the Continental Divide. A $200 season pass doesn’t necessarily tie people down to one area.”
As the dust settled and a new season approached, victory celebrations and casualty counts were set aside for spring. “It was a classic ‘fare war,’” said CSCUSA’s Jennings. “It’s a windfall for consumers. Perennial skiers need to view it as a gift. The planets were aligned for them. Everything else remains to be seen.”
