The future is digital, says US skiing giant Vail, on an industry threatened by the coronavirus pandemic and global warming

After a challenging year, Vail CEO Rob Katz says the company is changing the way it does business permanently

Covid-19 is the lesser concern when compared with diversity challenges and climate change

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The US ski industry survived a difficult 2020, and is using the lessons learned from coronavirus restrictions to improve its customer services. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 8:45pm, 14 Apr 2021Updated: 8:45pm, 14 Apr 2021

The ski season that may have never been is finally reaching its close.

After ski slopes in the US closed abruptly at the start of the pandemic in 2020, it was unclear whether operations could be sustained for an entire Covid-19 winter. But in most places, smart pivots made a big difference and fostered successful winter seasons with decent – if not quite normal – revenue.

That’s certainly true at Vail Resorts. In early March, the company that dominates the US ski scene reported US$147.8 million in net income for the second quarter of 2021, a 28.4 per cent decline year-on-year. But season-wide, skier visits were only down 8.2 per cent compared to the previous year. Where the company took its losses this year was in ski school and dining offerings, which took hits of 43 per cent and 57 per cent respectively. Both are parts of the mountain experience that rely on close human contact.

Still, the company’s relative success – overall travel and tourism was down 74 per cent in the US in 2020 – reflects forward thinking across the industry. In the pandemic’s early days, industry executives banded together to brainstorm solutions for nearly every potential point of Covid-19 transmission. Most implemented new reservations systems, daily skier caps, expanded apps for food ordering and even “curbside” delivery services, in which snowcats were deployed to deliver pizzas to the pistes.

The US skiing industry has survived a year of coronavirus restrictions, and is looking to the future. Photo: George Rose/Getty Images

“We’re not going back to the way we did business before,” explains Vail Resorts chief executive Rob Katz. “This has been an incredibly challenging year for everyone on every level. We’re coming away with a ton of learnings that we’ll be able to use going forward.”