At the risk of getting another scowl emoji, I'll say that ticket prices are way too high. The worry is to the long term future of the sport. How many college kids can afford to try skiing? Having recently spent the weekend at the SDSU waterski team's snow ski weekend, I saw this play out firsthand with too many kids not going out onto the slopes for financial reasons. Is losing the casual skiers good for the sport?
On the other hand, the kids who did buy tickets stayed out all day. They skied more hours than the passholders. Gotta get the money's worth out of that expensive ticket. Maybe those kids got hooked and will buy passes next year and ski for life?
On another note, we bought three day passes in Japan for less than one Squaw window pass. Europe prices were reasonable when we went there a while ago. International visits might not be important to ski resorts but discouraging them (with what looks to them like ripoff ticket prices) can't hurt overall profitability.
I do love the passes. They are reasonable value, encourage one to just go skiing, end the morning ticket hassle (good for both skiers and the resort) and encourage travel to other places. All good! Hopefully those stay reasonable.
At Big Bear, where they physically scan every ticket every run with an operator handheld reader (so I could see what passes were used), a huge majority of the skiers were on the Icon pass. Skier visits may not be down as much as ticket sales indicate (if at all).
Eric
