Vail is the most hated name in skiing, justifiably or unjustifiably. Rob Katz revolutionized the skiing business not quite twenty years ago. He flipped the script. Unlike previous ski conglomerates, Katz decided that Vail Resorts would make its money on skiing and its ancillaries as opposed to real estate. And the effort was wildly successful.
Skiing has never been cheaper.
This is kind of like Ticketmaster, the truth doesn't seem to matter, even though you'll see that M. Shadows finally spoke the truth here:
"Avenged Sevenfold's M. Shadows Unmasks Truth Behind 'Dynamic' Ticket Pricing: 'Artists Love to Hide Behind Live Nation and Ticketmaster and Go, 'Oh. We Had No Clue'''
shorturl.at/85Aug
In other words, the big corporation must be guilty, and an occasional bad story gets amplified as opposed to the truth.
Yes, you can walk up to the window during the holiday at Vail and pay in excess of $300 for a lift ticket, but if you buy before the first week of December deadline, you can get unlimited skiing at 42 ski areas around the world for about $1000. Talk about a deal... Break even is in four days. And there's nothing like a season's pass... If the weather is bad, you quit, you don't have to eke out the value of a day pass.
But never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Furthermore, Vail invested heavily in the ski areas it purchased, most prominently in lift structure. Other than beginner lifts, every chair at Vail Mountain is now high-speed. And those lifts are very expensive with relatively short lifespans (approximately 30 years).
But now, when there's a lift line it must be Vail's fault. If you're unhappy, it must be Vail's fault.
Skiing is akin to surfing. In that there are always people who say you should have been here yesterday, that it was better. When Vail proposed replacing the slow triple chair with a high-speed quad in the original Back Bowls, the locals were up in arms, the powder was going to get skied out! But once the lift was installed, everybody was happy. And you may have seen the photos of endless lines for this new lift on a powder day. Forget that powder days are insane, Vail dealt with this problem by installing another high speed quad chairlift in the same area.
But all this doesn't matter. Because in life it always come down to perception, not reality. And perception is that Vail is evil. It has homogenized the sport, it has ruined it.
Never mind that Alterra created the rival IKON pass with the same formula, albeit a tiny bit more expensive with fewer resorts, and restrictions at number of the legendary ones.
But Vail is Ticketmaster. Or UnitedHealthcare, the enemy, the root of all problems.
So how do you deal with this?
Not by being ignorant of perception.
The Park City ski patrol went on strike, for a few dollars more. They want $23 dollars an hour to open the area and keep it safe (a raise from $21).
That's too much for Vail. Which believes if it raises wages for these patrollers, it will have to raise wages across the board.
And one might possibly understand it when it comes to the numbers, but not when it comes to the effect.
The ski patrol went on strike and most of Park City didn't open and the vacations of thousands of people were ruined, over the Christmas holidays. You're paying a grand a night for a hotel room, or maybe you're staying in a fleabag hotel in Salt Lake City. You've come all this way and...
You can't ski.
Or you can wait in an endless line for limited skiing.
If it were me, I'd never give Vail another dollar, I'd never vacation at one of their resorts again. I spent all this money and you F*CKED ME? Without people like me, without customers, YOU'VE GOT NO BUSINESS!
This makes me crazy, all these rich CEOs believe they live in a vacuum, they don't acknowledge that if we don't buy/use their products, there is no company.
So how do you solve this problem?
Well, you never ever should have let the ski patrol go on strike during the holiday. And, if they ever were going to go on strike, you needed to give the public advance warning. It's not like this was a completely hidden issue if you were paying attention, but how many skiers pay attention to the minutiae of the ski business? Not many.
You pay the patrollers to work during the holiday, with the promise of negotiation thereafter. Furthermore, unionization/strikes have been bubbling up for the past few years, and the public is on the unions' side. Look at Shawn Fain and the autoworkers. He's a hero!
And Kirsten Lynch, paid millions a year, is a schlemiel.
Vail was already behind the 8-ball, and Lynch stuck a knife in the corporation's heart. All in the name of money, but as a result the stock went down.
There is only one side to this story, and Vail needs to deliver a mea culpa immediately. You just don't screw hard-paying customers this way, NEVER EVER!
If Lynch doesn't lose her job, there's no justice.
Those Ivy League college presidents lost their jobs as a result of their mishandling of the protests in the wake of October 7th.
You've got to send a message, you've got to set an example.
And the fact that Kirsten Lynch is a woman...SO WHAT? She's the decider, she has to go!
And if Vail was smart, it would find a way to give reparations. This may be impossible to do in practice, but an effort should be made. Everybody who actually showed up on the hill should get a discount on next year's Epic Pass. This won't make everybody happy, but it's an olive branch, and you can never make everybody happy.
Then again, are the lawsuits coming?
You want to cut them off at the pass. You want to control the situation, not let it control you.
This is not Vail's first faux pas, there was the Stevens Pass fiasco just a few years ago... But the trend is going in the wrong direction. This is now international news, only because Vail corporate was too stupid to read the tea leaves.
Kirsten Lynch has got an MBA, begging the question what they teach in these programs. Is it Milton Friedman all the time, does no one think of customers?
This is an atrocious situation. You might as well have a tornado on my wedding day, or a typhoon on my honeymoon. But those are truly acts of God, this strike is not.
I already came to Park City. I planned, I was looking forward to it. This is not like other strikes where I can buy coffee somewhere else, or buy a different brand of car. I'm already invested AND YOU SCREWED ME!
Vail's obliviousness is hurting the entire ski industry, making it look like an elite sport when as I said above, skiing has never been cheaper.
Good work Kirsten Lynch! It's your fault, the buck stops with you, tender your resignation before the board fires you.
As for the patrollers...
All I know is that Park City MUST STAY OPEN! The complete ski area. Everything else is subsidiary to this.
Ain't that obvious?
At least to everybody but Kirsten Lynch and Vail Resorts.
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