Vail Buys PCMR

[Highway Star]

He can bleed K for whatever profit is possible, but he can invest more & profit more. By profit I mean improve the existing operational profits from increased visit count, increase profits by potential for big upside on real estate sales, and every winter they are taking their 45% management fee from lots of new properties being rented by them. This takes him closer to attracting the high margin clientele that he wanted when first moving into K town.

I can see skier visits breaking past 1 million with new housing, interconnect, new Rams lodge, and key new lifts. That is a HUGE upside to making more investment versus perhaps buying another mountain.

Unless he buys Sugarbush! Fine with me.

Try to explain that to John Cumming. He and is family likely took $10M+ out of PCMR each year, straight into their own pockets. Pretty hard to find cash to reinvest when you pay yourself a crazy amount of money. Cumming probably makes (much) more yearly than all of Vail's senior management and board of directors combined.

Someone is going to be forced to pickup the slack in filling his pockets. Most likely through cost cutting at Killington, Copper, and Bachelor.

The Cumming family doesn't like investing in the companies they buy, they prefer to cut and cut until profitable, then milk away at it. Don't expect him do anything that has longer than a 2 year ROI, unless it's absolutely critically needed. Killington has lost two lifts since POWDR came to town.....what makes you think they would build new lifts and cut new trails?

[Highway Star]

Also can't see the average K ski tourist driving to any other mountain.

Not true at all - a very "Killington Regular" point of view. Most ski vacationers mix it up quite a bit, day trips, weekends and occasional weeks to a variety of other resorts, east and west. Even Killington passholders ski other areas, as do other passholders ski Killington.

Vermont skier visits are around 4 million per year. In '07-'08, Killington shed about 150-200K visits, mostly to Okemo, Sugarbush and Sunday River. They have gradually rebuilt that figure, to where they are possibly now equivalent to the last year of ASC. They would have to gain another 200k+ visits to be compareable to the peak skier visits in the 90's.

[Highway Star]

He can bleed K for whatever profit is possible, but he can invest more & profit more. By profit I mean improve the existing operational profits from increased visit count, increase profits by potential for big upside on real estate sales, and every winter they are taking their 45% management fee from lots of new properties being rented by them. This takes him closer to attracting the high margin clientele that he wanted when first moving into K town.

I can see skier visits breaking past 1 million with new housing, interconnect, new Rams lodge, and key new lifts. That is a HUGE upside to making more investment versus perhaps buying another mountain.

Unless he buys Sugarbush! Fine with me.

Yes, but Cumming seems to struggle with advanced concepts, like, how to actually run a ski resort. He already showed that they know how to cut costs and increase prices. Problem is, it cost them so many skier visits they probably made less money, and they spent several years walking back those decisions.

Why would he suddenly figure out that if he improves his facillities and operations, people are willing to pay a higher price....?

This year at PCMR will be extremely insightful. Even though Vail only has 60 days to get up to speed, this will probably be the best year recently for PCMR.

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[SnoBrdr]

Also can't see the average K ski tourist driving to any other mountain.

Not true at all - a very "Killington Regular" point of view. Most ski vacationers mix it up quite a bit, day trips, weekends and occasional weeks to a variety of other resorts, east and west. Even Killington passholders ski other areas, as do other passholders ski Killington.

Vermont skier visits are around 4 million per year. In '07-'08, Killington shed about 150-200K visits, mostly to Okemo, Sugarbush and Sunday River. They have gradually rebuilt that figure, to where they are possibly now equivalent to the last year of ASC. They would have to gain another 200k+ visits to be compareable to the peak skier visits in the 90's.

I'd say the average visitor to K gets there and stays there.

I doubt there's any mixing it up as you claim for the average skier who visits K.

We have gone over this many, many times but I doubt we will see skier visits approach anywhere near the 90s numbers.

Too many people out of work, prices have gone crazy and too many other things to do.

The days of the younger skier being able to join a ski house, remember those, are long gone. If they even have a job, a lot of them live with their parents and don't have the money to blow every weekend.

[Highway Star]

I'd say the average visitor to K gets there and stays there.

I think you're mixing this up. Obviously, if you're paying to vacation in a condo/hotel/house at Killington, it's because you want to ski there.

However, almost nobody skis exclusively at Killington throughout the course of the season, including passholders.

[SnoBrdr]

I'd say the average visitor to K gets there and stays there.

I think you're mixing this up. Obviously, if you're paying to vacation in a condo/hotel/house at Killington, it's because you want to ski there. However, almost nobody skis exclusively at Killington overall, including passholders.

No, I think you are making it up.

I wonder where your thoughts come from they are so out there.

Why don't you get a clipboard this year and stand at the lift and ask people,

Then we will both know for certain.

[Highway Star]

I'd say the average visitor to K gets there and stays there.

I think you're mixing this up. Obviously, if you're paying to vacation in a condo/hotel/house at Killington, it's because you want to ski there. However, almost nobody skis exclusively at Killington overall, including passholders.

No, I think you are making it up.

I wonder where your thoughts come from they are so out there.

Why don't you get a clipboard this year and stand at the lift and ask people,

Then we will both know for certain.

Are you insane? People who don't have ski passes usually ski at several different resorts throughout the season. This is totally normal.

[Highway Star]

Also can't see the average K ski tourist driving to any other mountain.

Sorry, I misunderstood this comment to mean "When a ski vacationer is a Killington customer, they come there exclusively", clearly not a reasonable statement. It's intended meaning is "people staying at Killington on a ski trip don't drive anywhere else" - which is obviously true.

Overall though, Killington should be able to win back market share with a better skiing product.

[throbster]

I agree with da Pimp (for once ). Adding the interconnect will attract the "biggest, longest, steepest" crowd. It will also attract vacationers who want a mountain that they can't ski in one day. Add that Sugerbush, Mad River and Okemo are all within a 60 minute drive, and you have a great east coast destination.

I don't think you could be more wrong.
The build it and they will come theory really doesn't work.

I also don't get that you can't ski K and Pico all in a day, this isn't the Alps.

Also can't see the average K ski tourist driving to any other mountain.

Let me try:
SnoBrdr knows what he is talking about and his opinion means a lot to me.

[steamboat1]

K passholder here. 25%-30% of my days are not at K.

[hillbangin]

I agree with da Pimp (for once ). Adding the interconnect will attract the "biggest, longest, steepest" crowd. It will also attract vacationers who want a mountain that they can't ski in one day. Add that Sugerbush, Mad River and Okemo are all within a 60 minute drive, and you have a great east coast destination.

I don't think you could be more wrong.
The build it and they will come theory really doesn't work.

I also don't get that you can't ski K and Pico all in a day, this isn't the Alps.

Also can't see the average K ski tourist driving to any other mountain.

Let me try:
SnoBrdr knows what he is talking about and his opinion means a lot to me.

Look at the tax receipts for 2013 for Jay - they built it - and the tourons drove forever to go to a waterpark........
Room and booze revenue in Jay was up from 11.5M to 19.6M -

http://www.state.vt.us/tax/pdf.word.exc ... update.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[jimmywilson69]

That's a different market. I'd love to know how many Canadians that attracted. The indoor waterpark thing is getting huge. They have 1 in the Poconos and I think 2 are on the books to be constructed.

I don't fully disagree that if you build the interconnect and some sort of "village" there could be a bump, but I'm not sure you'd see the same kind of jump that Jay saw with all of their lodging and water park.

[RENO]

That's a different market. I'd love to know how many Canadians that attracted. The indoor waterpark thing is getting huge. They have 1 in the Poconos and I think 2 are on the books to be constructed.

I don't fully disagree that if you build the interconnect and some sort of "village" there could be a bump, but I'm not sure you'd see the same kind of jump that Jay saw with all of their lodging and water park.

They should build a small(ish) village at Snowshed/Rams Head. Add a waterpark, Woodward (Indoor and Outdoor "for summer/fall") and complete the Interconnect.

[ME2VTSkier]

That's a different market. I'd love to know how many Canadians that attracted. The indoor waterpark thing is getting huge. They have 1 in the Poconos and I think 2 are on the books to be constructed.

I don't fully disagree that if you build the interconnect and some sort of "village" there could be a bump, but I'm not sure you'd see the same kind of jump that Jay saw with all of their lodging and water park.

They should build a small(ish) village at Snowshed/Rams Head. Add a waterpark, Woodward (Indoor and Outdoor "for summer/fall") and complete the Interconnect.

...and some TRUE ski in/ski out...

[machski]

Jay has added visitors due to the variety of activities they can offer (waterpark, ice arena, small concerts, skiing) without doing much to their ski product. Killington already has great apres scene, but not too good at off day/weather day activities. The interconnect would be great, but that stretches the snowmaking budget, especially if opening year of it turned out to be a bad snow year. I would think they might want to build up alternate activities before launching the interconnect to diversify the draw of destination visitors. As for a commitment to snowmaking with an interconnect, wouldn't mind seeing EVERY TRAIL with current snowmaking capabilities made on this season. Too many have gone idle over the years.