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Vail Resorts slashes pass prices across board for next season

Staff Report

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — Vail Resorts on Wednesday announced it is slashing their season pass prices for next season.

The company said in a press release that it will slice prices by 20% across the board on all its options as a way to deliver on its commitment to honor the loyalty of their pass holders.

The price reduction applies to the Epic Pass, Epic Local Pass, Epic Day Pass and Tahoe Local and Value Pass and Military and Adaptive passes.



“The ski industry, our company and skiers and riders everywhere just navigated the most challenging season we have ever encountered,” said Rob Katz, chairman and chief executive officer of Vail Resorts, in a press release. “Because of the growth and loyalty of our pass holders, we were able to ensure this season was a success, with full operations across our 34 North American resorts, even amid a pandemic. When we launched the Epic Pass 13 years ago, we began a journey to offer incredible value, flexibility and access to pass holders in exchange for a commitment before the season starts. Since then, we have added 32 resorts to our portfolio to give our pass holders more choice, and watched how they more naturally spread out their skiing over the course of a season. We have also invested over $1.5 billion into the guest experience with industry-leading technological innovations and numerous on-mountain capital improvements. Today, as we double down on our pass strategy by dramatically reducing our pass prices, we are excited to make it easier for everyone to move into a pass, and we remain fully committed to ensuring continuous improvements in the guest experience.”

The Epic Local Pass is available for $583, down from $729 last season and the full Epic Pass is $783, down from $979 a year ago.



The Tahoe Local Pass is $495 (down from $619) and the Tahoe Value Pass is $423 (down from $529).

The price reset puts prices back to where they were for the 2015-16 season. At that point, that pass offered access to 11 resorts in the country. Today, the Epic Pass offers access to 70 resorts around the world.

The Epic Day Pass gives guests the chance to visit resorts like Heavenly and Northstar for $67.

Find the full list of resorts accessible with this more limited offering and those excluded, here.

This new Epic Day Pass customization option will be available to purchase on April 29.

Epic Pass products are now available to purchase at EpicPass.com for the 2021/22 winter season.

“The new prices announced today not only provide value to existing skiers and riders, but we also believe they will contribute to the growth and vitality of our sport as we bring new people and higher engagement into the industry, which we think is imperative,” Katz said. “We also believe these lower prices will benefit our financial results based on new learnings from the past few years. First, since we launched the Epic Day Pass two years ago, we have seen a material number of guests purchase a pass who were not previously known to us as customers, especially guests who typically skied less days in a season. Second, people who switched from purchasing lift tickets to passes then actually skied more frequently, purchased more ski school and rentals, and were more likely to visit our resorts the following year. Finally, based on the pass credits from last year, we have much better insight on how to profitably drive renewal rates in the program, particularly for newer pass holders, where we see dramatic increases in loyalty if we can keep them in the program for their first few years.

“Much like in 2008 when we launched the Epic Pass, it can be counterintuitive to think that providing value to our guests by lowering prices will also drive value for our company,” Katz continued. “However, we believe the price reduction will drive incremental revenue, given our comprehensive lineup of pass products that can fit any guest’s needs, our personalized and data-driven marketing efforts, and the fact that the vast majority of all visits from our passes occur at our network of owned and operated resorts. We expect that today’s price reductions will generate incremental pass revenue from new unit sales in Fiscal 2022 that will approximately offset any pass revenue lost from the new discount, and we believe that in future years the compounding impact of retaining guests in our program will drive material increases in pass revenue. We have always been clear that advance commitment is one of the core strategies of our company, and our goal is to ultimately have more than 75% of lift revenue come from passes.”

All 2021/22 pass products will come with Epic Coverage, at no additional cost, which provides refunds for personal events like job loss, injury or illness, as well as for certain resort closures, including closures due to COVID-19.


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