Vail Resorts CEO Robert Katz expects skier visits to rebound during the 2026-27 season — but perhaps not to the levels seen before last winter’s historically poor conditions in Colorado and the West.
During a fourth quarter earnings call with investors Monday, Sept. 28, Katz reported that the company’s annual revenues were down as a result of the “exceptionally challenging weather” last season. He also blamed a 12% lag in Epic Pass sales through mid-September on last season’s conditions, but said he expects to see improvements as winter approaches.
“We certainly assume that the ski industry is going to have a significant recovery from last year,” Katz said. “The only question is whether the industry is going to get all the way back to the (2024-25) season. Our assumption is, for the guidance at least, that it may not.”
Vail Resorts reported that annual resort net revenue declined $132 million, or 4.5%, during the 2026 fiscal year that ended July 31, compared to the prior year. Heading into the 2026-27 season, the leading ski resort company has issued fiscal guidance that assumes visitation to be “modestly lower” than it had originally predicted going into last season.
Vail Resorts owns 42 ski areas in the U.S., including Breckenridge Ski Resort, Keystone Resort, Vail Mountain, Beaver Creek Resort and Crested Butte in Colorado, which it offers access to on the multi-resort Epic Pass.
Skier visitation in the U.S. fell off a cliff as a result of the historically poor snowpack across the West in 2025-2. An estimated 9 million fewer skiers hit the slopes nationwide — including 3.3 million fewer in Colorado, which recorded its worst skier visitation in 35 years.
“Based on historic U.S. ski market data, visitation typically recovers quickly following a season with poor conditions when the following year has normal conditions, and we are positioned well to capture that recovery,” Katz said. “… That said, last season was a true anomaly, and it certainly creates risk heading into next season.”
Describing the 2025-26 season as “one of the most challenging winters in history” for the ski industry, Katz said he believes that some skiers are adopting a “wait-and-see attitude” resulting in lower Epic Pass sales.
Vail Resorts’ business model, which has pushed skiers to buy multi-resort passes ahead of the season over daily lift tickets, helped provide “meaningful stability” during the 2025-26 season by insulating the company from some of the weather-related impacts, Katz said. He said he expects those who opted not to buy a pass ahead of the season might instead buy daily lift tickets, especially if snow conditions are favorable this winter.
If the West were to see above-average snowfall due to “a Super El Niño or something like that,” Katz said it wouldn’t be hard to imagine skier visitation surpassing where it was two years ago. But he said at this point Vail Resorts is making more modest predictions for visitation, “given what we’re seeing in our pass sales and what we’re seeing in other (ski company’s) pass sales through third parties.”
Vail Resorts and other major ski companies, including Alterra Mountain Co., which sells the multi-resort Ikon Pass that is the main competitor to the Epic Pass, share data about pass sales and pricing through third-parties. Major ski companies are facing multiple lawsuits accusing them of engaging in anticompetitive behavior and price fixing involving that data sharing, including one lawsuit from a Vail Resorts investor. Katz did not address these lawsuits during the investor call.
Vail Resorts is projecting a net income of $158 million to $233 million in the current fiscal year, an increase of about 3% despite the prediction of slightly lower visitation. The company’s earnings report said the revenue increase will be supported by “increased lift ticket visitation, pricing growth, increased guest spending across ancillary businesses and approximately $25 million of incremental efficiencies.”
“While pass sales remain down to prior year during this selling period, third-party data indicates we continue to outperform the broader industry, even more so on comparable unlimited products,” Katz said. “While we’re clearly not satisfied with any decline in pass sales, this is not necessarily surprising given the severity of the conditions we experienced this past season, and the massive growth we saw in pass sales in the past five years.”
