What passes is/are Aspen on? Mountain collective, but only 2 days....what else. Haven't been interested before so knowledge.
I am not an industry insider nor a high financier but i can speculate!
Weather patterns seem to have become less consistent. It would seem this would cause owners of ski areas to be more interested in selling season passes to help mitigate the volatility in income. Having a couple of days at their Western properties or even discounted tickets for passholders would make a huge selling point for East Coast skiers to buy passes.
My guess is that there is a bigger customer base in the East. Being able to sell season passes to all those city dwellers who may take a once a year holiday west and ski a few weekends east should be helpful even if the margin is smaller.
What passes is/are Aspen on? Mountain collective, but only 2 days....what else. Haven't been interested before so knowledge.
&My suggestion is to sit back for a bit, and watch to see how this unfolds. At the same time as this is being announced, the CNL portfolio is being sold to Och-Ziff. That deal has just closed.
KSL has been discussed as a likely buyer for many pieces of both "pies" for some time, as they have had a huge amount of cash ready to deploy. I think the number is roughly $3Bil, though I have also heard $4Bil plus on commitments.
Aspen Skiing Co is a great operation. I am very curious to see how they become involved. The Crown family are hardly the kind of owner/investors that others are in this business. I had heard a while ago about this potential marriage. I get it....below the ownership level.
Over the past four weeks, I have heard a lot of speculation about just how fast Och-Ziff will start to sell off various pieces of the CNL portfolio. There is at least some knowledgeable thinking that the sum of the parts may be ultimately worth a lot more than the whole.
Same thing with the Intrawest group. It's a strange mosaic of areas. It makes little sense to me, and others to see SkiCo really interested in all of it. Steamboat, for sure.
The KSL CEO has always been a big fan of CMH. I have also heard that the ONLY area in the East that KSL would truly be interested in is Stratton. It's because of the overall year round business, and the big village footprint. Along with the clientele.
My advice is to not be guessing about how this competes with VR, or the next pass deals.
Between all of the Intrawest properties and the former CNL holdings, I hear we may see some movement, perhaps a lot. Won't be for some time with Intrawest, as the deal needs to close first. Doesn't mean that conversations have not been going on for some time.
Disney.....yeah, have visited their operation and hired former Disney people as customer experience consultants. Seemed very smart 15-20 years ago. I do agree that the entire industry undervalues their human capital and what a huge difference they make. And it's different at every one of these properties in my experience.
Will be interesting to watch......
Well, we now all know where the industry is heading. Vail's EPIC Pass forced a lot of operators to change their business models if they want to grow (if not survive). The Mountain Collective Pass or Rocky Mountain Super Pass or whatever comes along could be interesting going forward. Three things to consider: 1) Colorado is now HQ to the two largest operators in the USA; 2) These two operators now control most of the better properties in the USA, and almost all of the better properties for ski pass purposes; and 3) Competition is usually good for consumers. Without competition, there was no way to compete with Vail's pricing model or to stop Vail from raising prices on the mountain (e.g., $24.75 hamburgers and $20.95 hot dogs). Now there is another option, which could help keep costs lower for skiers.
Maybe KSL wants to partner with SkiCo, in the end, on a couple of properties and have them oversee the mountain ops, etc. SkiCo has a great reputation. And the KSL group is very persuasive and smart. Obviously Squaw locals have their opinions! Keep in mind, KSL is the PE firm that owns the assets. It is NOT an actual operating company, though things get pretty blurry.
But the deal probably wasn't driven by concern over competition.
Well both can be going on but when you're talking about a 40% premium to stock price it's for sure driving it. If they can better position themselves at the same time they're smart enough to do it. And I think maybe we talk about consolidation speculatively but it doesn't seem to be depressing resort values at places like Steamboat when it gets capitalized at $1.5B so it's debatable how much they're worried about it.It is interesting that on the one hand we have threads about Vail taking over the world, and on the other hand massive consolidation not being driven by this competition. In a market that is flat in terms of skier days.
Which idols are false?
Really, Stratton is good for a about 2 days worth of ski days in a life time, then it gets a bit of "The big easy".
Wow, Okemo's numbers are really skewed.
Wow, Okemo's numbers are really skewed.