Vail Resorts Inc. reported that its retail/rental revenues rose 8.1 percent to $28.9 million in the fiscal first quarter ended Oct. 31, reflecting its acquisition of Midwestern specialty retailer Hoigaard’s and three new mountain resorts earlier this year.



Retail cost of sales rose 4.2 percent to $16.9 million. Vail Resorts owns Specialty Sports Ventures, which operates more than 185 specialty sports stores both in or near its ski resorts and in the San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Colorado Front Range regions they draw from. Its eight mountain resorts include Vail, Breckenridge, Keystone and Beaver Creek in Colorado; and the Heavenly, Northstar and Kirkwood mountain resorts in the Lake Tahoe area of California and Nevada. Since last winter it has acquired the Canyons mountain resort in Park City, UT, Afton Alps in Minnesota and Mount Brighton in Michigan. It acquired Hoigaard’s in April, 2013.

 

 

Season pass, bookings tracking ahead of last year

Vail Resorts reported sales of its season passes through Dec. 7 for the upcoming 2013/2014 ski season were up approximately 13 percent in units and approximately 16 percent in sales dollars versus the comparable period in the prior year, including the acquisitions in both periods.

 

 

“This year's season pass sales represent the largest percentage increase in the program since the introduction of the Epic Pass in 2008,” said Vail Resorts CEO Robert Katz. “These season pass results continue to demonstrate a compelling value proposition to our loyal guests and the ongoing success of our effort to get our guests to commit to skiing and riding our resorts before the ski season begins. We continue to see strong growth in our large Colorado and Tahoe markets and also showed good growth for our first year with a presence in Utah. Once again, pass sales in Minneapolis and Detroit represented our best performing destination markets.

 

Katz said international markets all reported strong growth, with the exception of the United Kingdom, which continues to be sluggish due to its economic issues.

 

“We believe adding Canyons and the Urban Ski Areas to our pass products had a very positive impact on our results,” he said. “As we look forward to the season, we are seeing lodging bookings trending ahead of this time last year, with good momentum across our properties on both occupancy and rate, particularly in Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Canyons.”

 

Based on historical averages, less than 50 percent of the bookings for the winter season have been made by this time.
The company also affirmed fiscal 2014 guidance issued in September, which called for EBITDA growth of 16.3 percent to 22.5 percent from fiscal year 2013, including an estimated $7.2 million of integration and litigation related expenses associated with the acquisitions.