The Business of Ski Resorts 

In case you're wondering why the voiceover sounds weird, I was sick, and this is what I sound like sick.

I feel like you forgot about a giant component here: Ski Lessons and meals. For vail at least (where I teach) over 50% of the ticket price of ski lessons goes straight to profit, and the exponential increase in cost of food without and increase in quality or worker pay over the years suggests that a decent chunk of the epicburger goes straight to profit. One thing about housing is that the issue isn't supply and demand, rather it is that Vail and Aspen explicitly cultivate a brand image of luxury and have gentrified their local towns. Finally, your analysis of public transportation systems are a bit shallow here. While the internal towns do have very good bus systems, the surrounding areas (where most employees live nowadays) are awful.

As coming from Austria prices over 100$ seem horrendous to me.. In our Ski resorts, tickets start at 25$ up to 70$, but never more than that.

I think you should have compared American ski resorts to those in Europe. I really enjoyed your video but as a European watching I feel like the snow sport industries in both continents are very different. Thank you for the video!

I honestly didn’t realize how much I love economics until I started watching these videos. I could watch these vids all day about pretty much any industry

Are those prices normal for the us? its cheaper in europe.

Wachusett mountain near me has the most snowmaking per acre of any ski area in North America

209$ / day and resort closing at 3pm : *laughs in French*

Wendover there is an airport at aspen you forgot to talk about!!

Dear Sam (Mr. Wendover), What you are missing is the fact that, up until a few years ago, the majority of low-skil employees in ski resorts (as well as other 'seasonal' enterprises in the USA) were staffed by Eastern Europeans and Russians. This especially applies to the smaller resorts. Increasing integration of places like Poland, Romania and Bulgaria have brought these individuals to seasonal employment in places like Western Europe and the UK, where wages are higher than Americans would offer at ski resorts or six-flags. I worked as a waiter in a five-star hotel in London, and literally all of my co-workers were Bulgarian and Romanian, and some of the older ones had worked in America at ski resorts in their late-teens. You are correct, to an extent, that increased labour costs are fuelling centralisation of the industry. That's not completely wrong. But it's more a problem of finding workers who can speak English, have rudimentary hospitality and/or mechanical skills, don't have year-round employment, and are willing to work for anywhere from minimum-wage to $13.50 per hour. While healthcare is provided for these individuals while they are working during those 4 months of the year that the resorts are in operation or preparation, there are still 8 more months throughout the year. Up until the late-1980s, Skiing was understood as a fairly elite kind of holiday. Look at the 1981 James Bond movie "For Your Eyes Only" as a comparison. With changes in consumer culture in the 1990s, Skiing companies tried to bring in middle-class customers to resorts which often had to produce their own snow at expensive costs. This was only sustainable insofar as these Ski companies could tap into cheap labour reserves from contracting companies in Eastern Europe, the same agencies which supplied workers for youth summer camps and Six Flags. The ultimate problem with Ski Resorts isn't climate change, [which for the dimwitted skeptics in this room, undoubtedly exists, and to which we are contributing], but rather fashioning a form of leisure based on seasonal use of marginal land in a manner which requires high amounts of cheap labour. And we as consumers want to do this for $100 per weekend. I have a friend whose family owns a pizzeria on Long Island. I met up with him this past Christmas when I was home visiting family. I asked him how the business was running. He complained to me that the only employees they can recruit are high-schoolers and ex-cons. I asked what they pay; he said minimum wage. I asked if he offers them space for advancement; he said no. I told him he shouldn't expect this to change. Industries which require seasonal [or surge-based] work, especially the tourism sector, have long depended on sources of cheap workers whose communities will offset the costs of production. It remains to be seen if this will be able to be sustainable. Please research for a future video the role of Filipinos in the Gulf Tourism and Air-Travel sector. -Bernie

Born and raised in Aspen, you did a great job explaining everything

raised part-time in a colorado ski town (breckenridge) and local ski culture is super unique. hard skiiers (like my dad) would wake up at 4am, take the bus to the slope, and "skin" up the mountain- that's where you put these weird fluffy attachments on your skis that grip the snow so you can walk up it- 6 out of 7 days in the week. everyone skied, it was really the only conversation point, and everyone was damn good at it- just about any born and raised local bragged about how they placed on the Imperial Challenge and were on ski patrol (the really good skiers who are hired to be cops/search and rescue on the slopes). It was interesting and I don't regret my time as a ski bum, but I'm glad I joined the real world eventually.

Just to give you guys some perspective. in Greece the lift pass is 8-30$. Minimum wage is typically 3$ per hour. rent is 100--500$ per month for a studio app. A ski lesson costs 20-50$ per hour. This year we have lil to no snow, while last season was one of the best!

As the owner of a small ski lift I can say you nailed it. And about snowmaking-constructing a snowmaking system can be much, much more expensive than the ski lifts...

2:21 I’ve been right there no joke, that’s telluride and in the back is the gondola and to the side is tracks restaurant

The epic pass and ikon pass are doing more than killing independent resorts. Lift lines have skyrocketed in length as access to resorts has grown. As someone who was a bum for a while, watching Vermont get taken over by these two giants has been painful

When the whole video is practically just photos and about Colorado. Great video though!

Another reason to buy smaller, more local resorts is like major league baseball buying "farm teams." Getting folks to buy season tickets and to ski at a "Vail owned" resort in the mid-west significantly increases the chances that the family will travel to Vail or one of their major resorts for a true family vacation rather than to Aspen or other 'non-affiliated' resort. It's called "getting the deal off the table."

Vail is up to $220 now for day passes during the winter peak weeks. Only feasible way to actually go skiing is by season pass now

I went skiing for the first time in my life this month so this was very interesting and timely

10:58 Mitch Jones as name, Wendover played WOW maybe?

Its amazing how muchthe industry is growing at a time where for me my "local" resorts got 0" of snow this year. I've been snowboarding my whole life but only went a few times a year if at all,but the last 5 years ive ben averaging 35-40 days a year living in Baltimore. I rode like 12 new resorts this year,and along with that a lot of new chirlifts. there is a massive amount of new lifts comming to resorts. and utah is still building new resorts

Some of these ski resorts (at least the ones in the Poconos) are also building water parks so that they can have an almost year round revenue stream, which means in the summer when the mountains are useless in terms of skiing and snowboarding, they still have people coming to the resort, and in the winter when the water slides and pools are useless, people are still coming to the resort

IMO to get the most out of your money do ski lessons: beginner, intermediate, advanced until you can do double black diamonds. The combined price gives you a lesson, day rental, and day lift for around $58 per thing. By the time you’re able to do double blacks you’ll probably know if you like the slopes enough to commit to 6+ trips a year (which is where the epic pass breaks even with lift tickets). If you can commit to 6+ trips a year then you should buy gear which will likely cost around $1000 (by gear I mean helmet, goggles, skis, boots, bindings, poles). If you can’t commit to 6+ trips a year then even at

They hire a ton of j1 visa workers from other countries. It's a symbiotic relationship!! I know lots of j1 and it's an amazing opportunity for both the j1 and the ski hill.

"They even own resorts in Australia"...... Wait... What?

Aspen's public transportation is RFTA (not RTFA at 5:21). It stands for Roaring Fork Transportation Authority.

Tahoe Value Senior Pass is $450 for next season. Will likely ski about 30 days at The Heave and Kirkwood, so daily cost will be arround $15. Just turned 70, Sierra Ski Ranch ("at Tahoe") has a Super Senior pass for $209. Hope to ski there at least 15 days, so that's also around $15/day. If I can still ski at age 80, Diamond Peak will issue a pass for $0. Almost everything else about getting old stinks, though. 😢😮😊

Sam: “I’m Batman”

We did a round trip snowboarding across 8 state in 2018... in Colorado at aspen we paid $220 for lift ticket, $20 for parking pass, and only 2/3 of the mountain was closed due lack of snow, and what was open was nothing but ice and rocks, and the terrain was completely destroyed with moguls, the lift lines were like 2miles long. What a rip off.

My closest mountain, my baw baw, didn't add any lifts, didn't upgrade existing equipment but still decided to nearly double lift ticket prices. The drive there sucks, the slopes suck, the T-bar lifts suck and now it's as expensive as the bigger mountains as well.

In the province of Québec in Canada, a full day ticket costs from 70 CA$ to 110CA$ for the biggest mountains, much cheaper especially as it's CAD not USD

Two of my brothers live and work in Girdwood, AK, a resort town and they can attest to all of this & I’ve visited and this is so true; prices in AK can be steep and Girdwood is even more pricey.

trust me the absurdly expensive ski passes are much less of a problem in Europe. Often you will find ski passes for a quarter of the price in France/Austria.

Nobody : Wendover productions : Business of Ski Resorts

Regarding the ticket prices: Go to the European Alps. Biggest and most modern ski resorts in the world, you pay about 40 to 50 bucks. (Smaller resorts can be even around 30 bucks, so economies of scale are off the table.) If you are into big mountain backcountry skiing go to Canada or Alaska. For anything other than that the Alps have substantially more to offer.

How to make rich people care about climate change: Rising temperatures will ruin ski resorts and hence their ski trips

At the ski resort I go to, it cost 60$ for a day of skiing, which is pretty good and the ski resort is one of the best ski resorts I’ve been to, if you spent 500$ on a season pass, you get access to the ski resort for the whole, year, which is steal, you know what else is an even more of a steal? If spent 700$ instead on the season pass, you get access to 6 other ski resorts also for the whole year

The analysis is on American resorts only. European Alpine and Scandinavian resorts are different and more affordable. Generally American resorts are not easy to get to, catering for wealthy visitors mainly, have a lot fewer lifts which are basic and outdated and have the most expensive ski pass system in the world. European resorts, especially in Austria, Switzerland and Northern Italy are for weekend recreations by the locals. They are a lot smaller but more numerous. Some European resorts are many times bigger than the biggest North American resorts. An America chairlift can have several queues but European chairlift is always one-queue system. Additional queues are for instructors and children and they are only restricted to the French resorts. Some American resorts do extreme skiing while European skiing is for holiday and weekend recreation.

Lets get something clear: Aspen has plenty of land. Its a matter of the city not wanting to allow in "poor" housing.

7:46 Jasna resort. he he he

6:30 More and more people are foregoing a lift ticket and a handful of runs down the mountain for a pair of BC skis and and a hike up the mountain.

Man, do this with your throat: "AHEM!"

Why was ther a random clip from Finland

While it may have been simply unfortunate wording, as a Canadian I had a good chuckle at the notion that Whistler Blackcomb is a safeguard against poor snow in the Rockies, when in fact it is also in that mountain range. Just North of the border in the Canadian Rockies!

at 10:10 and 10:24 Alpine Valley ski area is listed. There are three unrelated Alpine Valley ski areas: in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio. Vail purchased the Alpine Valley ski area in Ohio.

I know it would've been too much for just one video, but it would've been interesting if you talked about how the industry is aging. Lift prices are skyrocketing and the push for extremely expensive "worldwide season passes" has meant that ski resorts are actually having an extremely hard time attracting new people into the sport. Younger generations just don't have the disposable income to spend $500-$1000 on day passes, lessons, rentals, and cold weather gear on trying out a sport for a couple days that they might not even like. This is not including the travel and lodging expenses with getting to extremely rural areas (usually by air) that have a cost of lodging as high, if not higher than, visiting a major city. Because of this, the sport's is looking pretty grim even without considering climate change.

Vail now makes about half of their revenue in real estate. The epic pass isn't just about hedging, it's about selling hotel rooms.

I live in stowe, recently vail bought stowe. This was an impact on the people that live in my small town making there be more tourists and make my town very expensive. I see your point that it will make it cheaper to go some place else. But for people who don’t travel around the world skiing, its sad to see my town being taken over. As well as on some holidays vail blocks local passes so they cant ski. They made a change that has angered tons of people because they made parking, paid parking. In conclusion vail does not care where or whom they buy the resort they only care about the money.

Sam, as one of the most important and youngest members of Vail Resorts, this video is amazing and accurate, ski resorts are an incredibly difficult business model to comprehend, and it’s insanely expensive to run the resorts, especially with the pandemic on our hands, but we are very hopeful about summer operations this year, thanks for making this video.

2:37 lets all appreciate that good boi in the background

It's been a brutal season on the east coast. Bought a season pass I haven't even used once this year. That's how bad it is.

I visted my older brother near deaver last month just after new years and learned to ski it went rather well, I learned fast!

Interesting vid. Living 45 minutes from Mt. Hood Oregon, I pay $265 a year for unlimited midweek skiing.....8am to 9pm. It's not Vail or Aspen, but I average 30+ runs a day and 35-40k verts. ZERO LIFT LINES. November to May on real snow. I'm a skier. I go up to turn and burn. Put my gear in my rig, get up early to ski and when I'm done, drive home. I don't need or want the resort or apres ski amenities. Like I said, I'm there to ski and ski hard. This year so far, 42 ski days and it's only March. So you can keep your $1100 multi venue ski pass.

The one missing aspect is the real estate component which has figured into the business model of resorts located on more private land.

Working in a ski resort in Europe you'd be making a shitload of money, even as a waiter. I was once working a season as a servicer for snowboards and skis, made 2500€ a moth, one day off, free ski pass and free hotel. At Laax Switzerland, there the ski pass is about 100€ a day!

The elephant in the room is Mountain biking. Ski resorts can make money in the summer. The biggest mtb spot in the world is Whistler in BC Canada. There is a growing amount of ski resorts becoming MTB destinations. It is the viable answer to continue to make money almost year round. They can pair up season passes just like ski season and double the revenue. The lifts are the money maker, keep them maintained and going.

Many ski resorts are starting to become downhill mountain bike parks outside of ski season. For example, Whistler is known just as much for mountain biking as it is for skiing.

This should be "The Business of North American Ski Resorts" as it's quite different in Europe where resorts are larger and cheaper (despite the same high property costs). For example, a ski pass for Les 3 Vallees in France is €330 for 6 days but has 157 lifts. It's overall a completely different market.

Here in Trentino (norther Italy) where I usually go, with 450€ for a seasonal pass I can ski on 160km of slopes and 59 different lifts in 3 different ski areas of the Dolomites. All of this without taking skis off. It’s astonishing to me what I just viewed in the video

This was a an excellent video. I am not a skier and never have but this was a great snapshot of the industry and the challenges the resorts face.

Haven't watched yet, but i was thinking of going to whistler next year and the price difference between there and val thorens was an eye opener. Lift pass for three valleys for a week

Very soon all ski resorts will have variable prices for passes, depending on weather, snow accumulated, holiday/weekend and of course demand. Just like airplane, car rental, hotels.

Live in a ski town, very informative video, The employees are very much the biggest expense of ski resorts, Lots of young people come to work internationally, we call them J1's because of the work visa I believe is called a J1 Visa.

To ppl possibly thinking that skiing is too expensive for what you get it is not me and my family go to vail annually and for the time we stay it’s fun there are ways of introducing kids to it with lessons the quality of the snow and tracks overall are better it’s fun to be with family. The price may be high but if you go on a trip you may find you love the sport.

Skiing becomes a hell of a lot cheaper with a season pass.

holy hell, tickets are expensive in america! in my local ski resort it's like

Back in 1990's, I used one ski pass for whole season cuz at the time pass looked same but now it's all different colors for different days and you gotta scan through lol

I learned to ski in Vail in 1981. A lift ticket was $17.

You forgot to mention that many ski resorts are starting to open up bike parks in the summer times for extra revenue during the summer off season

every single vid this channel makes is so informative. Its great

Funny you say the merger was some 5 years ago. I regularly wen tol Bear Mountain/Snow Summit, but also Mt. High and when i 1st started going round 06' prices were bout 56$ on non-holiday in-season full day tickets. Prices would drop barely 10 bucks for half days, sour when on holidays by as much as 30 to double, but greatly slashed when off-season, those were only useful when we'd get a really good snow year, which for here in SoCal, being that they are high altitude resorts [gen. at 8,000 to 9,000 ft] ,would be out of either La Nino years, (warm, wet consistent precip.) that is, to say, when its SoCal's turn for a El Nino year, 2 years ago was a El Nino year, but was mostly NorCal that saw it, SoCal got there turn one year majorly in 97', but sometimes can be whole sate as in 82, but for'throughout southern half of state it meant no snow till above bout 7,000 but above that, get huge snow levels, and the other time is more a 50/50 chance during a La Nina year, which will either see near extreme drought (Cold, & dry) as was case in 04 & 05'and most of the last decade or so, but other times, when the jet stream is favorable, we get Cold & sporadic downpour storms), as we saw last year, 3 years ago, 2012, and 2006, but it was 2006 when LA fell just an inch short of rainiest year on record at 42 inches in that year (for LA area thats an enormous yearly rate; average is typically between 7 to 14 inches) but typically always means it colder, we saw this happen in 2006 majorly when many many times we saw the deserts and even many parts of the IE snowing. La Nina's, when wet usually mean snows are low altitude say 2 to 4,000 ft, with uniform levels above that. Climate change says we should get more El Nino's, an means the state should be seeing warmer wetter winters average but actually we are seeing opposite, more La Nina's, with cold, drier winters, oddly these also mean cooler summers, with El Nino's bringing disgustingly hot summers. and yet as California started to enter into the start of a decade long drought [ a normal cycle but this one was extreme tickets prices, particularly after the merger kept surging up and up, year after year till eventually it matched Mammoth, where non-holiday on-season full days at 90, with holidays at 110, and since some several years ago have appeared to plateau

If you want to ski or snowboard in CO you get a season pass. ~ $600-700, I’ve put in 15 days so far this season.

Ski resorts sell gravitational potential energy.

Just got back from my ski vacation in France, and it was waaaaaaay cheaper than 200$ a day lol

Thank goodness corporations came to skiing and brought us all those great amenities. Skiing isn't about the snow...it's about the clothes and restaurants!

I would like to see where you got your $5000 per acre number, because that is over 20x the cost of snowmaking compared to when I worked with my local resort. Granted, larger resorts have longer pipe runs and therefore more costs in pumping, but not by that much. Even the larger resors I know of, the electric consumption to make snow is just a minor post on their budget (though it directly eats into their profitability, so they want to minimize it as much as possible)

as a euopean I can say skiing is cheaper here. day tickets are about 50-100$/€ a day

You should do a video on what a Mega Corp company would look like. If apple, google, Facebook, and amazon all combined. What it would look like

In Germany a really good ski resort coasts max 40 euros a day...

This channel is amazing.

Skiing used to a people's sport in many countries of Europe and parts of the US. Now, it is pretty much a sport for the very affluent.

My ski resort has a downhill mountain bike park for the summer and Autumn months.

this is amazingly explained

This video is the best excuse to watch footage of beautiful mountain areas

Mont Tremblant (Quebec) started selling passes to let people skin up the mountain. If you don't have one you'll get kicked off

That's interresting but what does explain the stark difference in price with the huge ski resorts in France ? For exemple, the biggest ski resort in the EU, les 3 vallées costs 63€/day for a domain with 200 lifts. And a smaller domain with around 30 lifts like les 7 Laux costs 27€ a day. 200 a day seems absurd honnestly.

In austria a daily ski ticket in st. Anton (they got 88 lifts if i remember right) costs 56€ i think and i think that is the biggest skiing area in austria, not by the number of lifts but biggest in like number of slopes, but how can vail not even have half of the lifts (32 i think it said in the video) and be 209$ lmao sure in euros that is 188€ but thats per day still and thats a crazy price

Didnt realize those mega ski companies owned so many local resorts to me in new england... Which has had a crap snow season so far. But having the new england nitro pass has already paid itself off. I can go up for a half day and not feel like i wasted any money.

Wow that’s very expensive! The biggest ski resort in Italia, Dolomiti superski, has like 300 ski lifts and 680km of slopes. And it’s 360€ in high season. For a week of use.

Haha, if only other American cities also understood that and provided good public transit, a lot of traffic, pollution, injuries and even deaths could be prevented. The nature of a mountain valley town is very beneficial for transit though, as it’s long and narrow. One of the reasons the Shinkansen works so well is that Japan is similarly shaped.

9:04 - video from ski resort in Slovakia, Bachledova dolina

When you came to season passes, that’s very true, here in Switzerland, there are 25 ski resorts that have up to 150km of slope each, got the idea to sell a season pass that give you the entrance in all of these resorts, all year. Also for mountain biking in summer, and it costs 400$ 🥳🥳 before they had done this, 3 years ago, most of them were threatened and were close to bankrupt, now there are much more people on the slopes, and they are still happy even if they ski only 3 hours one day.

Well done piece!

Thanks again for another informational video.

Correction: snow guns can work at temperatures below dew point, not below freezing. The dew point depends on humidity. In low humidity waterdrops evaporate and cool down quicker so they can produce snow at temperatures somewhat above freezing.

Since real estate is cheaper in Manhattan than in Aspen, I'll go skiing there next time. My only worry is the steep slopes down those buildings.

How much additional revenue does mountain biking bring in the summer season compared to skiing in the winter season, at least for resorts that are also popular bikeparks like Whistler?

I've got your new slogan. You can have it for free. "Wendover. How Business Really Works"

It’s so expensive in the USA. In Switzerland you can get a daily pass for 15.- (kids) and ~35.- (adults)