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“Vail Resorts misses revenue growth expectations”

Vail is struggling to sell Wall Street investors on its business plan as bad publicity, declining skier visits and strategic errors eat into its bottom line.

Vail Resorts disappointed Wall Street investors again with its most recent financial update.

The Broomfield-based ski resort giant missed analysts’ expectations for revenue growth, and sold fewer ski passes than anticipated, the company reported in its fourth-quarter update. Sales of its signature Epic Pass were down 3 percent for the upcoming winter sports season, though price increases helped to offset lost sales.

“I want to start by acknowledging that results from the past season were below expectations, and our season-to-date pass sales growth has been limited,” CEO Rob Katz said during a conference call for investors on Tuesday. “At the heart of our underperformance is that the way we are connecting with guests has not kept pace with the rapidly evolving consumer landscape.”

Vail is struggling to sell Wall Street investors on its business plan as bad publicity, declining skier visits and strategic errors eat into its bottom line. Katz, known for introducing the Epic Pass in 2008, stepped back into the CEO role in May after taking a different management role for several years. During his absence, the company’s stock price lost more than half its value.

In its recent quarterly update, Vail said its traditional reliance on email as a tool to communicate with customers isn’t as effective anymore.

“We’ve been slow to shift to new and emerging market channels,” Katz said.

Additionally, the company plans to refocus on selling individual lift tickets instead of pouring all its resources into Epic Pass sales.

“Looking ahead … we will be evaluating all aspects of our pass portfolio, including the product offering, pricing and benefit in conjunction with our lift ticket products,” Katz said.

The company will analyze its pricing strategy for different products at different resorts at different times of year to figure out the best way to sell them, Katz said.

Source: https://www.cpr.org/2025/09/30/vail-resorts-misses-revenue-growth-expectations/

“They don’t answer any calls”

We arrived 3 days ago and have not been able to reach front desk. They don’t answer any calls. Bed is lumpy, leak in living room so bad that we had to put a pain down, people above us are extremely loud, tried moving but not response, no one told us when our presentation was, i had to call three different places to even got a partial answer. I emailed reservations,ownership. & confirmations about all out problems sat morning the 27th. I didn’t get a call back till 415 from David, when I tried to call him back he was gone. I tried again this morning the 28th. No response, fitness center closed, I called before we came and was told it was open, and now one seems very happy with their job. We are not happy at all. I’m requesting a full refund.

Rebecca McEahern via Ontrhesnow

Vail: fix your dumb payment system. Just for a change.

Another year – another moronic error produced by Vail’s Epic payment system. Perfectly valid card which I am using nationwide and worldwide. And yet another stupid payment error by Vail. This company simple cannot help itself. Vail sucks even in small details.

No enforcement of safety or any rules, no working heat, no secure mail room in employee housing. no HR department to contact and lots of screw ups i.e. tax rates being entered wrong, hours missing from paychecks, significant delays in pay, certain departments hired with full-time hour expectations but then REQUIRED to work overtime and not able to request days off. way too big of a company and way overstaffed, and overpromising to guests/staff to not have employee support (HR functions outsourced to virtual company which take weeks to respond to urgent matters, if at all).

Advice to Management: Stop over promising guests and bringing in employees under false pretenses then act.

Unsafe vehicles, drivers forced into overtime, management fails to protect drivers.

Wage is low; don’t care about employees; overtime because they don’t have enough employees.
Vail Resorts Glassdoor reviews

“Vail Senior leadership is extremely toxic.”

Senior leadership (Kirsten, Michael, Rob) are extreme micromanagers who do not tolerate dissent or welcome alternative points of view from those below them. They demand that they make all meaningful decisions for the company – and the only people allowed in the room with them are their VPs. As a Director in the corporate office, this was incredible disempowering because it meant that I had no real ownership. Vail describes itself as “the greatest leadership company on earth” – this is laughable. There is no empowerment to make decisions, no respect for work life balance (at one point the CMO literally asked if we could stop taking Thanksgiving as a company holiday, regularly demands people work on Christmas / New Years, etc.), and effectively zero career progression opportunities at the Director level and above unless your only focus is on pleasing those above you. I really, really wanted to like this company. I loved my co-workers. It broke my heart to see it so thoroughly ruined by senior leadership. There is a reason there is SUPER high turnover (which has been the case for years, by the way). When I joined, the average tenure of my coworkers was less than a year. When I left several years later, the average tenure of my coworkers was less than a year. People come here thinking it will be great (who doesn’t want to work in the ski industry?), realize the reality of the situation, and then leave. I ignored the Glassdoor reviews when I took my job there and I regret doing so.

Advice to Management

Honestly, with Kirsten about to become the new CEO, I would not recommend anyone work at Vail’s corporate office. She surrounds herself with people who reinforce her own viewpoints and systematically weeds out anyone who disagrees with her. She talks in public about the importance of sustainability and then literally hours later, in private meetings, creates crushing workloads for the teams under her – I have seen this happen on many, many occasions. These are hallmarks of terrible leadership and a toxic workplace culture.
Vail Resorts Glassdoor review

What Vail Resorts employees are saying about Vail

Absolute unfair pay, no holidays, no support from management, no benefits unless employee is full time which is very rare.

No work/life balance, they don’t listen to local resort or community feedback, no consideration for local cultures & values, super corporate, no heart. Morale is terrible. Staff have no sense of ownership of their roles or the company. It feels like working for a faceless corporate overlord when skiing is supposed to be about fun. The company is hated by the local community. I was embarrassed to tell people I worked for them.

Really low pay considering how expensive food is in Vail. You will be exposed to the sun pretty much all day in most work areas so you have to bring your own sun screen. A few crappy management members will try to get you to come in on your days off for extra training or work, and will treat you poorly if you won’t, effectively mandatory overtime despite policies that state otherwise. Sick days are highly discouraged but everyone gets sick because they live in dorm-like conditions. Most of your coworkers will probably be nomad potheads with no goals in life (hence the stricter management protocols).

No room to grow in the company, no pay raise in 5 years, and new manager every season. The communication between different departments is nonexistent.

No work/life balance, unrealistic expectations and forced office fun; little to no diversity.

Horrible management, no work/life balance, no loyalty, horrendous pay.
Vail Reviews at Glassdoor.com

Is Vail still not Woke enough? “Vail Resorts Announces Angela Korch as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer”

“We are pleased to welcome Angela back to Vail Resorts as our new CFO. Angela is a strong leader with deep experience in our industry, a passion for our sport, and a long history with our company.”
Chief Executive Officer Kirsten Lynch

The previous CFO – a male called Michael Barkin – has been given the boot. Woke Vail is at it’s best.

**“Vail Resorts is an equal opportunity employer“**

Vail Resorts is an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, protected veteran status or any other status protected by applicable law.
https://jobs.vailresortscareers.com/

More to the story: 5 of the 6 ski areas Vail Resorts owns are now run by women. Is it Woke enough?

“Equal opportunity employer“?

So the employment of the above candidate has nothing to do with their sex? Yeah, right.

“Vail Resorts’ 1st Qtr 2023 Results | Made $137 Million Loss, Total Epic Pass Sales Down 12% on Last Season”

Vail Resorts, Inc. (NYSE: MTN) today reported results for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 ended October 31, 2022, provided season pass sales results, reaffirmed its guidance for Resort Reported EBITDA for fiscal 2023, provided additional detail on its calendar year 2023 capital plan and declared a dividend payable in January 2023.

Vail Resorts sold 2.3 million Epic Pass products for the 2022/23 season, which is down by 12% over last year.
Source: VailResorts

Category: Info