SAM Magazine—Broomfield, Colo., Dec. 11, 2025—Vail Resorts reported 4 percent year-over-year resort net revenue growth in the 2026 fiscal first quarter ended Oct. 31, 2025, fueled by a 35 percent increase in skier visits and strong pass sales in Australia and post-Labor Day in North America. The gains were somewhat offset by rising costs generally and increased marketing costs in particular, as VR expanded its marketing to "broaden the funnel," as CEO Rob Katz described it.

Recent pricing tweaks to individual lift ticket products are part of a broader shift in how VR plans to market itself.

"Beginning in the fall, we made some shifts in our marketing approach to increase spending channels outside of traditional email, which drove improved results for the fall past selling period. This included broadly increasing paid media and specifically being much more present in social and influencer channels," Katz said on the post-earnings conference call with analysts.

Katz, who returned to the CEO role last May, noted that VR's new discounted, 30-day advance-purchase lift ticket available at select resorts is expected to increase visitation and revenue over the long term, though he admitted the program will start slowly until consumers become aware of it.

Still more pricing moves. "In addition to our new lift ticket product offerings, we are also looking to be more strategic in pricing across our individual resorts and time periods. We are implementing more dynamic pricing strategies targeted at driving off-peak visitation at certain resorts, which fulfills the dual purpose of pricing select resorts more competitively and incentivizing visitation in lower volume time periods," he continued.

"We will be utilizing these strategies at resorts like Keystone in the upcoming ski season, where we see the most opportunity to offset lower price with additional volume capture to drive overall revenue," he said, adding that a longer-term focus is to optimize season pass and lift ticket products and pricing to “drive long-term value creation."

For this season, VR has 2.3 million advance-purchase pass holders of one stripe or another, who are expected to record 74 percent of the season's visits, excluding comp tickets. Epic Pass sales were off 2 percent in units but up 3 percent in dollars for the season to date. Pass sales are expected to total approximately $1 billion.

VR also said that its resource efficiency transformation plan, which aims to cut operating expenses by $100 million a year, will achieve $75 million in cumulative efficiencies by the end of fiscal 2026, half of that coming in the current fiscal year.

While it's not possible to predict how total visits and revenue will perform this year, VR said it plans roughly $230 million in capital improvements across its properties in fiscal 2026. These include:

• replacing the base-area Cabriolet at the Canyons in Park City, Utah, with a 10-passenger gondola
• replacing the T-bar on the Blackcomb Glacier (B.C.) with a fixed-grip quad chair
• dining experience upgrades across the company, including facilities at Whistler Blackcomb, Beaver Creek and Keystone in Colorado, and Hunter, N.Y.
• renovation of the Lodge at Vail (Colo.)
• installing remote avalanche control systems at select resorts
• upgrading a triple lift at Seven Springs, Pa., to a quad
• upgrading the snowmaking system at Okemo, Vt., with low-e equipment to improve early-season production capacity and reduce energy consumption.

On the technology front, VR plans to update its e-commerce platform and add to its My Epic App, with new e-commerce functionality and expanded capabilities for ski & ride school, rental operations, and My Epic Gear.