Vail Resorts’ latest financial results have exposed a deepening challenge for the ski industry, and one investor says the fix has less to do with lift tickets than with where the people who run the lifts can afford to live. The company reported Sept. 28 that pass product units sold for the coming North American season fell about 12% through Sept. 18, while pass sales dollars dropped about 6%. Skier visits for the fiscal year declined 13.4% to 15.3 million, and net income attributable to the company fell to $147.5 million from $280 million a year earlier.
The results arrive as Vail Resorts faces its first annual report since Oasis Management, a Hong Kong hedge fund, launched a proxy contest, nominated four director candidates and raised its stake to 7.4%, according to regulatory filings and local press coverage. Local coverage of the proxy fight in Park City has raised the possibility that individual resorts could eventually change hands.
Daniel Kaufman, founder of the permanent capital holding company Kaufman & Company and an investor in mountain resort and workforce housing development, said the numbers show the ski industry’s growth story has moved from selling more passes to keeping mountain towns livable for the workers who operate them. “A pass is a promise that the mountain will be open, staffed and worth the drive,” Kaufman said. “You can argue about weather and pricing all day, but the thing no corporate office can fix from a distance is whether the lift operator, the patroller and the line cook can afford to live near the base. That is where the value of a resort actually sits, and it does not show up in the pass count until it is too late.”
Kaufman said any owner, current or future, should underwrite housing before lifts or lodges. “If mountains start moving from one owner to another, the buyers who do well will be the ones who treat employee housing as part of the lift system, not as an amenity,” he said. “We look at mountain towns the way we look at any housing market, by the data: supply, wages, and how far a worker drives to the job. A resort that gets those right does not need a record-breaking year to make money.”
Kaufman & Company invests only its own capital and does not raise outside funds. Its operating company DEK Builds, headquartered in Cheyenne, Wyoming, is an integrated design, build, development, and investment firm working across custom homes, mountain resorts, hotels, and commercial construction. LandBriefing, a land and housing data platform built by Kaufman Real Estate & Consulting, recently added Mountain Watch, which tracks land and housing fundamentals in mountain resort and gateway towns. Oldivai, an aligned and independently led partner, develops workforce housing.
The implications extend beyond one company’s balance sheet. For investors, the proxy contest and falling pass sales raise questions about whether resort operators can sustain growth without addressing labor availability. For mountain communities, the pressure to provide affordable housing near resorts is becoming a central economic issue. For skiers, the reliability of the resort experience—open lifts, staffed lodges, and functioning services—depends on whether workers can afford to live nearby. Kaufman’s argument suggests that the next phase of competition in the ski business may be won not on the slopes, but in the housing market.
