WEBVTT - How Vail Resorts Sparked the Great Northeast Ski Revolt

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<v Speaker 1>You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and

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<v Speaker 1>Tim Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio.

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<v Speaker 2>Well.

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<v Speaker 1>Vail Resorts is an eight point three billion dollar publicly

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<v Speaker 1>traded company with more than seven thousand employees. It's known

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<v Speaker 1>as the operator of some pretty legendary ski areas in

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<v Speaker 1>Colorado in the American West, including Veil, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone, Whistler,

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<v Speaker 1>Heavenly and more.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, even though it's called Veil Resorts, about two thirds

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<v Speaker 2>of the properties it has in North America are now

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<v Speaker 2>east of the Rockies, and this is thanks to an

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<v Speaker 2>acquisition spree over the last seven years or so, and

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<v Speaker 2>the highest concentration of resorts are in the northeast. One

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<v Speaker 2>of those resorts is out of Tached Mountain. It's in

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<v Speaker 2>New Hampshire. Hey.

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<v Speaker 1>Austin Carr, Bloomberg News technology reporter, drew the short straw

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<v Speaker 1>and had the tough assignment of spending a significant amount

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<v Speaker 1>of time at a ski resort, writing about it for

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<v Speaker 1>Bloomberg Business Week. You can check out Austin's story on

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<v Speaker 1>the Bloomberg Terminal and at Bloomberg dot com Slash BusinessWeek.

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<v Speaker 1>Austin joins us now from our Boston studio. So Austin,

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<v Speaker 1>you did go to ad Attash and spend some time

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<v Speaker 1>there over the last few months. But what you found

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<v Speaker 1>is really interesting because some of the skiers there have

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<v Speaker 1>been pretty upset with their corporate overlords over the past

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<v Speaker 1>few years. Bring us up to speed on what's going

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<v Speaker 1>on at at attachh and how that speaks about the

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<v Speaker 1>Biggerville Resorts story.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so Attached is one of the old timey New

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<v Speaker 3>Hampshire mountains that Vale Resorts bought up a few years ago.

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<v Speaker 3>And this is a resort that dates back to the

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<v Speaker 3>nineteen sixties, if not earlier. You know, it's one of

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<v Speaker 3>those sort of places in world New Hampshire that skiers

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<v Speaker 3>obsess about. Despite the icy conditions, the rainfall, the wind,

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<v Speaker 3>and it was very dated until Veil Resort bought it.

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<v Speaker 3>They had a lift that was frequently breaking down. It

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<v Speaker 3>took about twenty minutes to get to the top, at

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<v Speaker 3>which point people felt frozen. There was bad snowmaking, there

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<v Speaker 3>was poor infrastructure, bad service, and everyone thought this would

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<v Speaker 3>be totally upgraded when Vail bought the mountain in twenty nineteen,

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<v Speaker 3>but that didn't happen at all. In fact, the sort

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<v Speaker 3>of years that I was looking into the story and

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<v Speaker 3>talking to people around at Attached more recently, they were

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<v Speaker 3>upset about everything under Veil. They thought they were going

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<v Speaker 3>to get this huge, deluxe overhaul and anything, but that happened.

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<v Speaker 3>They just actually ended up with pretty mediocre conditions, which

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<v Speaker 3>you would never expect under some of that owns, breck

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<v Speaker 3>and Ridge and Vil.

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<v Speaker 2>So what happened Austin? What does Vale say?

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<v Speaker 3>So Val basically bought the mountain in twenty nineteen. What

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<v Speaker 3>they say is, you know what happened six months after

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<v Speaker 3>the acquisition, COVID hit. We were still figuring out. We

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<v Speaker 3>bought about seventeen mountains in twenty nineteen, right before the

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<v Speaker 3>pandemic hit, and during that process they had to deal

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<v Speaker 3>with a huge amount of transition. There was a big

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<v Speaker 3>global labor shortage, and when you have a labor shortage

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<v Speaker 3>and a ski mountain, that means you don't have people

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<v Speaker 3>to groom the mountain, to make snow, to deal with

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<v Speaker 3>people in line scanning lift tickets, and so they just

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<v Speaker 3>had to They basically said that they were always going

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<v Speaker 3>to invest in these mountains, but it just took a

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<v Speaker 3>few years to get there. But during that time there

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<v Speaker 3>was a massive backlash towards Vale Resort, not only at

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<v Speaker 3>at Attach, but it mountains around New England and the northeast,

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<v Speaker 3>from Pennsylvania, New York to Vermont, at places like snow Hey.

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<v Speaker 1>Can you talk Austin a little bit about Villa resorts

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<v Speaker 1>strategy here of picking up a few dozen mountains over

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<v Speaker 1>the last few years that are definitely not on the

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<v Speaker 1>same level as what they have in the Rockies and

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<v Speaker 1>in California. Yeah.

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<v Speaker 3>So I think a lot of people associate Veil with

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<v Speaker 3>puder skiing big mountains out west, as you noted in

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<v Speaker 3>the Rockies, but a lot of their are strategies now

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<v Speaker 3>is based around these so called feeder properties. These are smaller, local,

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<v Speaker 3>regional resorts around major metropolitan hubs in the East, and

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<v Speaker 3>the basic idea is that people learn on these small

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<v Speaker 3>hills and then they graduate to an expensive trip out west.

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<v Speaker 3>So the CEO of Veil, Kirsten Lynch, actually she grew

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<v Speaker 3>up around Chicago, started skiing in Wisconsin, which is not

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<v Speaker 3>a place that you'd think about for skiing, but it

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<v Speaker 3>has a couple of small mountains, one of which they

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<v Speaker 3>bought up about a decade ago. And they expanded from

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<v Speaker 3>the Midwest into the East by buying all these regional

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<v Speaker 3>local mountains, assuming that they could sort of just take

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<v Speaker 3>I guess some of these skiers for granted the ski

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<v Speaker 3>pass that they offer, the Epic Pass, this seasonal pass

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<v Speaker 3>that's much cheaper than a lot of this single mountain

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<v Speaker 3>season passes that you see out in the East. Yet

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<v Speaker 3>I think there's something that happened with the expectations that

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<v Speaker 3>Veil has brought to skiers, expecting that sort of high brow,

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<v Speaker 3>high lux quality conditions that they never quite delivered or

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<v Speaker 3>expected to have to deliver to these skiers out ease.

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<v Speaker 1>So Austin it was I was actually living I lived

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<v Speaker 1>in Veil when they released the Epic Pass back in

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<v Speaker 1>two thousand and eight, and it was such a big

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<v Speaker 1>deal because a season passed to just Veil was over

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<v Speaker 1>one thousand dollars. And then they come out with this

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<v Speaker 1>thing that Robcatz design called the Epic Pass that gives

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<v Speaker 1>you access not just to Veil, but to so many

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<v Speaker 1>other mountains that Veil Resorts owned, all for a price

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<v Speaker 1>of like half of what an of a pass just

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<v Speaker 1>to Veil would cost. It was, it was, it was

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<v Speaker 1>a huge huge innovation, and a lot has happened in

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<v Speaker 1>the ski industry since then. There's some really interesting color

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<v Speaker 1>in your story about the way that the folks over

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<v Speaker 1>at at Attache felt about Veil Resorts. Talk a little

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<v Speaker 1>bit about the what happened with the map online, because

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<v Speaker 1>I think this kind of speaks to the way they felt.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I mean during the process, they really felt like

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<v Speaker 3>second class citizens around New Hampshire or vermon and especially

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<v Speaker 3>at ad Attached. One person told me look on Veil

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<v Speaker 3>Resorts website, and of course when I went there, they

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<v Speaker 3>have a big map of all their properties and at

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<v Speaker 3>Attaches actually in the wrong place on the map, and

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<v Speaker 3>it helped these locals. It's terrible people did not the

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<v Speaker 3>executives at Vail might not have known quite where this

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<v Speaker 3>mountain is. It was sort of an interesting process, sort of,

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<v Speaker 3>you know, even talking to Veil executives about these regional properties.

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<v Speaker 3>I mean, I talked to the CEO of Veil and

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<v Speaker 3>I was just asking her, you know, she kept saying,

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<v Speaker 3>we want each of these local mountains to have their

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<v Speaker 3>own identity, And when I asked her what the identity

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<v Speaker 3>of at Attached should be, she didn't have an answer.

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<v Speaker 3>Just said, talk to one of the locals there, and

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<v Speaker 3>I think that type of reception, that type of feedback

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<v Speaker 3>from sort of higher ups in Colorado is exactly what

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<v Speaker 3>people feel angry about around New Hampshire and why they

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<v Speaker 3>had been pushing for so long to get more in

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<v Speaker 3>these properties.

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<v Speaker 1>Well, Austin, it's a great story. I encourage everybody to

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<v Speaker 1>check it out, and also the graphics on it are amazing,

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<v Speaker 1>So read it online at Bloomberg dot com, Slash BusinessWeek. Austincarb,

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<v Speaker 1>Bloomberg News technology reporter, joining us from our Boston studio