SKIING
HERITAGE

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The $92 lift ticket: How did we get here?

(From the upcoming March, 2008 issue of Skiing Heritage Magazine)

THE NEWS: Vail and Beaver Creek recently set their single-day lift ticket price for the 2007-08 season at $92, making it the most expensive in the U.S.

In 1967, the price of a Vail's weekend lift ticket was $7.50. If the resort's lift ticket pricing had followed the consumer price index over the next 40 years, the listed ticket price would be approximately $42 - less than half of today's $92 price.

Direct price comparisons between eras, however, are somewhat problematical. Ski resorts in the 1950s and 1960s often buried lower lift ticket prices in all-inclusive ski week packages (lodging, lessons, lifts). Today, resorts sell multi-day passes, and steeply discounted season passes for off-peak skiing. Taking into account as well, children's tickets, promotional and comps, the average ski area's ticket revenue per-person visitation was $35.16 in 2006-07, according to a study by RRC Associates for the National Ski Areas Association.

Nevertheless, at the big destination ski resorts, skiers, in real inflation-adjusted terms, are definitely paying more for lift tickets (Aspen, $87; Deer Valley, $81) than they did four decades ago. One reason is that ski area costs have risen because of more intense grooming and snowmaking and detachable lift technology, compared to 40 years ago.

If there's any consolation, skiers today have a wider range of lift ticket prices to choose from. A midweek one-day lift ticket is available for as little as $20 at small and medium-sized ski areas, $72 less than at Vail. In 1967, prices of a weekend and holiday ticket at vacation-destination resorts clustered between $5.00 and $7.50. The nation's highest priced ticket, $8, was posted at Sugarbush, Vermont, a resort favored at the time by socially and economically upscale skiers.

JOURNAL OF ISHA, THE INTERNATIONAL SKIING HISTORY ASSOCIATION
The International Skiing History Association is a not-for-profit corporation, whose mission is to preserve and advance the knowledge of ski history and to increase public awareness of the sport's heritage.

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Skiing Heritage, 133 South Van Gordon St #300, Lakewood CO 80228 303-987-1111