Vail Resorts Q4 2025 Earnings Report

Vail Resorts EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$5.08
• Consensus EPS: -$4.75
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.33
• One Year Ago EPS: -$4.67

Vail Resorts Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $271.29 million
• Expected Revenue: $272.87 million
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$1.58 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +2.20%

Vail Resorts Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2025
• Date: 9/29/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Monday, September 29, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

Vail Resorts (NYSE:MTN) is a leading mountain resort company that owns and operates an integrated network of ski areas, hotels, restaurants and retail outlets. The company’s signature Epic Pass program offers skiers and snowboarders season‐long access to its portfolio of resorts, while ancillary services such as ski and snowboard schools, equipment rental and retail drive additional revenue.

Headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, Vail Resorts was formed in 1997, building on the legacy of Vail Associates, which opened the Vail ski area in 1962. Since its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker MTN, the company has pursued both organic expansion and strategic acquisitions to enhance its market presence and diversify its offerings.

Today, Vail Resorts operates more than 40 destinations across North America and Australia, including flagship properties such as Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Park City, Whistler Blackcomb and Perisher. In addition to winter sports, the company has invested in summer mountain activities, real estate development and luxury lodging to create a year-round business model and deepen guest engagement.

The company is led by Chief Executive Officer Kirsten Lynch, who has overseen initiatives to upgrade resort infrastructure, expand digital platforms and advance sustainability goals. Under her leadership, Vail Resorts continues to focus on delivering premium guest experiences and long-term growth in the global mountain resort industry.

Vail Resorts Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Negative Sentiment: Rob Katz acknowledged that fiscal 2025 results and season-to-date pass sales underperformed expectations, driven by declining email effectiveness and outdated guest engagement channels.
• Positive Sentiment: Introduction of Epic Friend Tickets and targeted lift ticket pricing strategies aim to rebuild visitation and drive new guest conversion, with the full ticket value being applied toward future pass purchases.
• Positive Sentiment: The company plans to modernize marketing by expanding paid digital and social channels, influencer partnerships, and resort-specific brand storytelling to better connect emotionally with guests.
• Neutral Sentiment: Vail Resorts issued fiscal 2026 guidance projecting net income of $201–$276 million and reported EBITDA of $842–$898 million, factoring in price increases, ancillary growth, and normalized Australia weather.
• Positive Sentiment: The Resource Efficiency Transformation Plan has generated $62 million of cost savings to date and is on track to exceed $100 million by fiscal 2026, supporting margin improvement and disciplined capital allocation.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good afternoon and welcome to the Vail Resorts Fiscal 2025 Year-End Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. Currently, all callers have been placed in a listen-only mode, and following management's prepared remarks, the call will be opened up for your questions. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you need to remove yourself from the queue, press star two. To get to as many questions as time permits, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up at any time. If you should need operator assistance, press star zero. I will now turn the call over to Angela Korch, Chief Financial Officer of Vail Resorts. You may begin.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon and welcome to our Fiscal 2025 Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Joining me on the call today is Rob Katz, our Chief Executive Officer. Before we begin, let me remind you that some information provided during this call may include forward-looking statements that are based on certain assumptions and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties as described in our SEC filings, and actual future results may vary materially. Forward-looking statements in our press release issued this afternoon along with our remarks on this call are made as of today, September 29th, 2025, and we undertake no duty to update them as actual events unfold. Today's remarks also include certain non-GAAP financial measures.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Reconciliations of these measures are provided in the tables included with our press release, which, along with our annual report on Form 10-K, were filed this afternoon with the SEC and are also available on the Investor Relations section of our website at www.vailresorts.com. I would now like to turn the call over to Rob for some opening remarks.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Thank you, Angela. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Before we discuss our results and fiscal 2026 guidance, I want to share my perspective on where the business stands today and where I see opportunities for future growth. After being back in the CEO role for the past four months, I want to start by acknowledging that results from the past season were below expectations and our season-to-date pass sales growth has been limited. We recognize that we are not yet delivering on the full growth potential that we expect from this business, in particular on revenue growth in both this past season and in our projected guidance for next year. That said, I am confident that we are well positioned to return to higher growth in fiscal year 2027 and beyond.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

At the heart of our underperformance is that the way we are connecting with guests has not kept pace with the rapidly evolving consumer landscape. We have not fully capitalized on our competitive advantages nor have we adapted our execution to meet shifting dynamics. For years, email was our most effective channel for reaching and converting guests, leveraging data to deliver efficient and targeted communications. However, as consumer preferences have changed, particularly over the last few years, email effectiveness has significantly declined. We did not make enough progress in shifting to new and emerging marketing channels. Compounding this, we historically have prioritized transactional call-to-action messaging with our guests and missed the opportunity to tap into the strong emotional connection our guests have with the Epic brand and our individual resorts. This approach was successful during a time period where we were rapidly adding resorts and innovating our pass product portfolio.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Over the last few years, where we have not benefited from those types of positive news events and instead have dealt with actually some moments where we did not deliver on the operational front, our approach has not been reaching a broader array of guests in order to amplify brand awareness, attract new guests, and increase guest loyalty. We've also not had enough focus on our lift ticket business. This made sense as we were rapidly growing our pass business, but as we dramatically increased pass penetration, we have not pivoted to bring the same level of focus, creativity, and resources to engaging with guests who, for whatever reason, were not yet ready to purchase a pass before the season.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Finally, while we have made great strides in developing and improving our My Epic app, the app does not have native commerce, and we have not been set up to accept either Google Pay or Apple Pay. However, we are seeing guest engagement dramatically increase in the app and on mobile, yet purchase conversion within both are significantly lower than what we would see on our websites and below its potential. I'm fully committed to course correcting and executing a multi-year strategy that unlocks the full potential of our business. The strategy is rooted in leveraging our strong competitive advantages to drive sustained and profitable growth. We own and operate 42 resorts across almost all regions in North America and Australia, and we have the strongest brands and most popular resorts.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

By owning and operating our resorts, we are able to collect extensive data from our guests across all our lines of business throughout the entire network, giving us tools we can leverage in every marketing channel and use to inform mountain and technology investments in the highest return areas across all our resorts. We can also leverage our integrated model and data to optimize every aspect of our product and pricing approach across all lift access products, passes, and lift tickets at each resort, as well as ancillary revenue, which will continue to be a larger focus for the company going forward. Finally, we are well positioned to leverage the new technologies that are defining the current market environment. However, our immediate priority is increasing guest visitation to our resorts, an essential driver of revenue and ultimately free cash flow.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

We will continue to invest in our resorts and our employees, consistent with our long-standing focus on delivering exceptional guest experiences. At the same time, we are taking decisive steps that we believe will rebuild lift ticket visitation, evolve our guest engagement approach to better reach and convert guests, and re-accelerate growth of our pass program, all of which are critical to strengthening our long-term financial performance. On the first item, we are focused on rebuilding lift ticket visitation, an essential driver of revenue and long-term growth. We are strategically enhancing lift ticket offerings, pricing strategies, and our marketing approach aimed at bringing in new guests to our resorts in ways that complement our pass program. In August, we introduced Epic Friend Tickets, a new benefit for the 2025-2026 Epic Pass holders, giving them the ability to share discounted lift tickets with family and friends.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

This not only celebrates the social side of skiing and riding, but it also drives lift ticket sales for new guests that would be attracted to visiting our resorts with their friends and family. Importantly, the full value of the ticket can be applied towards a future pass purchase, making it a powerful tool for future pass conversion. At the same time, we're evolving our lift ticket pricing strategy with more targeted adjustments by resort and by time period. This allows us to balance guest access and value while optimizing demand, particularly in off-peak periods, without compromising the strength of our pass program.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

We are also increasing our media investment with a focus on top-of-funnel awareness of our resorts to help us reach new audiences and drive incremental visitation throughout the winter and intend to continue to innovate our lift ticket product offering as we get into the upcoming ski season. Beyond the expected immediate impact on visitation, lift ticket guests represent a high conversion population for future pass sales which supports our pass growth in FY 2027 and beyond. Second, we're evolving our guest engagement strategy to better connect with skiers and riders and drive stronger performance. Our focus is on broadening our reach and modernizing how we engage across channels. We plan to increase our exposure within digital and social platforms and expand our influencer partnerships.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

We believe this shift will allow us to reach guests where they are and to fully utilize our guest data to create content that resonates with our guests and drives action. We're also aiming to elevate the individual brands of our resorts by tapping into the emotional connection guests have with each destination. We believe this is an important differentiator in a competitive landscape. Third, we continue to see meaningful opportunities to expand advanced commitment and grow our pass business. The pass price reset ahead of the 2021-2022 season exceeded our expectations in the initial years and despite some modest declines recently, pass units are expected to be up over 50% in fiscal 2026 compared to fiscal 2021 and the same is true for our Epic and Epic Local Pass products which despite recent modest declines, we expect to be up approximately 20% in units since the 2020-2021 season.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Importantly, we have delivered this strong growth in those products despite significantly expanding other pass options for guests, including our Epic Day Pass products. This growth in our pass program has significantly strengthened our financial resilience and stability. We're focused on driving long term guest loyalty, which means ensuring we're optimizing the pass offering and continue to drive retention and conversion of new guests to the program toward that end while driving lift ticket sales. Epic Friend Tickets is also a new benefit for unlimited pass holders. We're also investing in personalized media and influencer channels to better target and convert prospective pass holders. Because passes were already on sale during the CEO transition, our ability to influence fiscal 2026 pass results was limited.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Looking ahead to fiscal 2027, we will be evaluating all aspects of our pass portfolio including the product offerings, pricing and benefits in conjunction with our lift ticket products and pricing with a focus on driving conversion to our highest value, highest frequency products and optimizing our overall lift access revenue growth. We are also actively searching for a new leader of our marketing organization and have retitled the role as Chief Revenue Officer, reflecting the clear focus for this leader on driving all aspects of revenue for the company and are looking for an executive with strong P&L ownership and overall leadership experience. Finally, we will continue to invest in our people and our resorts to ensure we are delivering an experience of a lifetime.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

We are uniquely positioned to capitalize on investments in new technologies and processes that make it easier for our guests to engage with each aspect of the physical and digital experience we provide, driving both more value for our guests and revenue opportunities for the company. Vail Resorts has delivered incredible stability and has an extraordinary foundation to execute on these opportunities and generate stronger long term sustainable growth. We have irreplaceable resorts, an owned and operated business model and robust data infrastructure that enables a sophisticated approach to product and pricing decisions across our resorts. We continue to execute against our growth strategies of growing the subscription model, unlocking ancillary, transforming resource efficiency, differentiating the guest experience and expanding the resort network.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

In addition, we have a resilient business model with demonstrated financial stability and strong free cash flow generation and a track record of disciplined capital allocation and consistent innovation. Coupled with our passionate and talented teams, we believe we are well positioned to succeed in the future. These actions, taken together with the continued success of our Resource Efficiency Transformation Plan, give me confidence in our ability to deliver long term sustainable growth and long term value for our shareholders, our guests, our communities, and our employees in the years ahead. With that, I will turn it over to Angela to further discuss our financial results and fiscal 2026 outlook.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Thank you. As Rob mentioned, while our financial results in fiscal 2025 do not reflect the full potential of the company, the results do highlight the stability of the business model and early success of the Resource Efficiency Transformation Plan. The company generated $844 million of resort reported EBITDA in fiscal 2025, which represents 2% growth compared to the prior year despite total skier visits declining 3% across our North American resorts. The results were within the original guidance range for fiscal 2025 for resort reported EBITDA provided in September 2024, and excluding the CEO transition costs and changes in foreign exchange rates, the result was within 1% of the midpoint of the original resort reported EBITDA guidance range.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Results for our fourth quarter fiscal 2025 were slightly ahead of our expectations with strong cost management, solid demand for our North American summer operations, and improved visitation in Australia relative to the prior year. Now turning to our outlook for fiscal 2026, in fiscal year 2026 we expect net income attributable to Vail Resorts to be between $201 million and $276 million and resort reported EBITDA to be between $842 million and $898 million. The guidance includes an estimated $14 million in one-time costs related to the Resource Efficiency Transformation Plan.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

We anticipate growth in fiscal 2026 to be driven by price increases, ancillary capture, incremental efficiencies related to the Resource Efficiency Transformation Plan, and normalized weather conditions in Australia in the first fiscal quarter of 2026, partially offset by lower pass unit sales which are expected to have a negative impact on skier visits relative to the prior year and cost inflation. Season pass sales through September 19th, 2025 for the upcoming North American ski season decreased approximately 3% in units and increased approximately 1% in sales dollars as compared to the prior year period through September 20th, 2024. The season-to-date trends through September 19th, 2025 were generally consistent with the spring selling period, with the decline in units driven by less tenured renewing guests, those that had a pass for just one year, and fewer new pass holders.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Renewals are up for our more loyal pass holders, those that have had a pass for more than one year. As we enter the final period for season pass sales, we expect our December 2025 season-to-date growth rates to be relatively consistent with our September 2025 season-to-date growth rates. The Resource Efficiency Transformation Plan continues to generate strong results for the company, and we expect to exceed the $100 million in annualized cost efficiencies by the end of fiscal year 2026. Our fiscal 2026 guidance assumes we will deliver $38 million of incremental efficiencies before one-time costs, contributing to the achievement of an expected $75 million of cumulative efficiencies since we announced the plan in September 2024. Finally, in fiscal 2026, we anticipate cash tax payments to be between $125 million to $135 million.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

As Rob noted, while our guidance for fiscal 2026 reflects growth over prior year, it does not reflect the full potential of this company. We are committed to positioning the company to unlock stronger and sustainable long-term growth moving forward. Turning to our capital allocation priorities, we remain committed to a disciplined and balanced approach. As stewards of our shareholders' capital, our capital allocation priorities remain consistent: first, prioritize investments that enhance our guest and employee experience and generate strong returns, and second, maintain flexibility to pursue strategic acquisition opportunities. After those top priorities, we return excess capital to shareholders in support of reinvestment in our resorts. In calendar year 2025, we expect to spend approximately $198 million-$203 million in core capital before $46 million of growth capital investments at our European resorts and $5 million of real estate related capital projects.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

In addition to this year's significant investments, we are pleased to announce some select projects from our calendar year 2026 capital plan, with a full capital investment announcement planned for December 2025, including a core capital plan consistent with the company's long-term capital gain. At Park City, we are continuing the multi-year transformation of the Canyons Village to support a world-class luxury base village experience. Vail Resorts, in partnership with the Canyons Village Management Association, is replacing the open-air cabriolet transport lift with a modern 10-passenger gondola, which will improve the guest experience, reduce weather-related disruptions, and complement the Canyons Village parking garage, a new covered parking structure with over 1,800 spaces being developed by the developer of the Canyons Village.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

In addition, we plan to resubmit for permits to replace the Eagle and Silverlode lifts at Park City Mountain to continue our investment in the on-mountain experience, which, if approved, would be upgraded for the 2027-2028 North American ski season. Planning of additional investments at Park City Mountain across the mountain is underway, and additional projects will be announced in the future. The company also remains committed to the multi-year transformation of Vail Mountain and, in calendar year 2026. We will continue to invest in real estate planning to develop the West Lionshead area into the fourth base village in partnership with the Town of Vail and developer East West Partners. In addition, the company plans to build on the success of its calendar year 2025 lodging investment at The Arrabelle at Vail Square with plans to renovate guest rooms at the Lodge at Vail in calendar year 2026.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

To further enhance the guest experience across our resorts, the company will be investing in technology enhancements and new functionality for the My Epic app, including new in-app commerce functionality and payment platform integrations to improve mobile conversion, enhanced by My Epic Assistant functionality and expansion of the new ski and ride school technology experience. In addition, the company will make technology investments to enhance the integration of My Epic Gear guest experience. Turning to the second priority, our balance sheet remains strong and is positioned to enable future strategic acquisition opportunities. As of July 31st, 2025, the company's total liquidity as measured by total cash plus revolver availability and delayed draw term loan availability was approximately $1.4 billion, and the company's net debt was 3.2x its trailing 12 months total reported EBITDA.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

On July 2nd, 2025, the company completed its offering of $500 million aggregate principal amount of 5.625% notes due in 2030. We used a portion of the proceeds from the offering to repay seasonal borrowings under our revolving credit facility. In addition to the $200 million share repurchases completed during the quarter, we intend to use the excess proceeds from the bond issuance together with the $275 million delayed draw term loan for the repurchase or repayment of our outstanding 0% convertible senior notes due 2026 at or prior to their maturity on January 1st, 2026. After these priorities, we focus on returning excess capital to shareholders. In the current environment, we look to balance our approach between share repurchases and dividends. The company declared a quarterly cash dividend on Vail Resorts common stock of $2.22 per share.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

The dividend will be payable on October 27th, 2025, to shareholders of record as of October 9th, 2025. Current dividend level reflects the strong cash flow generation of business, with any future growth in the dividend dependent on material increases in future cash flows. We also maintain an opportunistic approach to share repurchases based on the value of the shares. As mentioned, in the quarter, we repurchased approximately 1.29 million shares, or 3% of outstanding shares at an average price of approximately $156 per share for a total of $200 million. Continue to evaluate the highest return opportunities for capital allocation. Now I'd like to turn the call.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Over to Rob.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Thanks, Angela. In closing, we greatly appreciate the loyalty of our guests this past season and the continued loyalty of our pass holders that have already committed to next season. With our Australia winter season coming to a close, I would like to thank our frontline team members for their passion and dedication to delivering an incredible experience to our guests. I would also like to thank all of our team members that are working to welcome skiers and riders back to the mountain this coming winter season. We are looking forward to a great upcoming winter season in the U.S., Canada, and Switzerland. At this time, Angela and I would be happy to answer your questions. Operator, we are now ready for questions.

[Operator]

At this time, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. You may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two again. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We'll take our first question from Shaun Kelley with Bank of America. Your line is open.

[Shaun Kelley, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Hi, good afternoon everyone. Thanks for taking my questions, Rob or Angela. Maybe I just wanted to start with kind of the broad backdrop for visitation for this upcoming season. Rob, in the prepared remarks you talked a lot about some very, I think, interesting initiatives to start to address.

[Shaun Kelley, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Some.

[Shaun Kelley, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Of the visitation challenges and some of the opportunities you see there. Obviously the Epic Friend Tickets being a piece there, and I imagine you expect utilization on those to be pretty good. Can you help us think about that underlying backdrop and what you're doing on marketing with Epic Friends and contrast that in the bridge for the year? On the financial side, it seemed like the implication was that the expectation, given that pass units are down a little bit, was that maybe visits are down, but I might be misreading that. Just wondering kind of how you expect really this season to play out from a visitation standpoint given some of the initiatives in play?

[Shaun Kelley, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Thanks.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, thanks, Shaun. Yeah, that's true. We do expect visitation in total for this year to be down slightly. I think that is primarily driven by the decline in pass sales to this point. While we do think that we're going to make a portion of that up with lift ticket sales, it's not going to be enough to overcome, in our view, the decline in pass sales to this point. What I would say is that a lot of the things that I mentioned about what we need to do to correct how we engage with guests are things that are multi-year efforts. None of those things are things that happen right away.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Even the Epic Friend piece will take time for our guests to understand what they have, for us to communicate with our guests, for them to then increase their utilization, to understand the change in terms for that and how they can use it and how they could turn it into a ticket the following year. We expect to see some benefit from it this year, but obviously additional benefit from it in future years. The same is true with our paid media investments. If you're looking for top of funnel brand building effort, that's not something that's going to happen in a month or two. That's something that takes more time. The same is true for getting deeper and more skilled and more sophisticated in all the other marketing channels that we have.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

What I would say is, I think, in the end of the day, we are starting to prepare for the fiscal 2027 season now. We have work going on. We're obviously working on pass sales, but also working on other initiatives. If you kind of back that up, you realize from the time that some of this started, it's not possible to have a full impact on fiscal 2026.

[Shaun Kelley, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Got it. Makes complete sense. Just as my follow-up, you kind of already touched on a little bit of it just for the 2027 and beyond plan. Some of the outline for maybe the Chief Revenue Officer and some of the opportunity. Just how big of a change is on the table here, Rob? Just in terms of like look, the big initiative done was to push for volume, to push pass utilization up at the expense a little bit of price.

[Shaun Kelley, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Right?

[Shaun Kelley, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America]

That was sort of the compromise made back during the pandemic. Is something as fundamental as shift on the table here as we think about moving forward, whether it be raising the pass price in its entirety to balance out that ecosystem differently or maybe think about it differently.

[Shaun Kelley, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Just.

[Shaun Kelley, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Possibly charging an add-on, which has been proposed at a major kind of high-value resort like Vail, just to change the composition of price versus volume. Just how are you thinking about that? Very fundamental idea as we turn the page to next year?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, I think the way to think about it is what we did with the price reset was really kind of a right across the board approach. What we saw was that we felt like all of our pricing was too high in terms of getting the penetration that we wanted in PEF. I think that was the right move at the time and I think it's driven actually good success. Obviously, as we highlighted, we're still well above where we were before then. What I would say though is I think what we have not done is, we have a lot of different pass products, right? It's not just the Epic and Epic Local, right? We have a lot of different pass products for that. We have child pricing and college pricing and teen pricing and regional passes.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

All of those products really sit on top of all of our lift ticket products. I think what you're hearing from us is I think what we can do is now, not take a kind of across the board approach to any of this, but actually resort by resort or pass product by pass product approach. There's technology now that's available that, given our data and what we can put into it, where all of a sudden we have a much higher level of confidence in terms of what we can drive with some of these individual moves. We have, I don't know, 200+ pass products or something like that.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

We have thousands of lift ticket products and those have largely been marching in lockstep where we think actually there's an opportunity for us to think much more strategically about it again using some of the tools that are out there that we all know about. What I'd say is, in a way, if we're cracking something open, it's not necessarily that we're looking to take products up or price down per se, it's that we're actually cracking this kind of connection that every single product has had to each other over the last 15 years.

[Shaun Kelley, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Perfect. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

We'll move next to David Katz with Jefferies. Your line is open.

[David Katz, Managing Director at Jefferies]

Hi. Thanks very much. With respect to the sort of single day visitation or the walk up, you know, window, one of the debates I guess you're having is on sort of that price, right, and you know, whether any of the strategies around improving, you know, walk up visitation includes adjusting some of the price schedules that are out there or some of the pricing strategies?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

What I would say is I think we look at it, I mean, maybe a little bit more broadly. At a top line level, we're looking at pass, right, so that's all the products that are sold before the season begins that are non-refundable. Then there's lift tickets, and within lift tickets we have a lot of different lift tickets, most of which candidly are advanced lift tickets.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

There's something that you buy three days in advance, seven days in advance, and we do put a lot of business through that. Yes, we do have people who walk up to buy tickets just that day, and we are looking at all of those prices. Of course, I would say, yeah, we're still going to be putting, you know, the Epic Friend Ticket is a 50% discount on the walk up price, so that would perfectly fit for somebody who wants to make a decision that day. We think there could be opportunities for us to be more creative about some of the other prices that we have and the kind of advanced windows that we have for them. Because if you haven't made your decision by the pass deadline, then it's a question of when do people start making decisions for their future trips.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

In the end, some of this is like we're trying to kind of tailor this to how people make a decision. It's not that many people are deciding to go to Vail that day and then, you know, kind of flying out. The question is like, when can we shift price that makes the biggest impact on driving more visitation?

[David Katz, Managing Director at Jefferies]

I understood. Interesting about the discussion around media channels and historically the company has always been particularly advanced at data gathering. How much of this strategy about reaching customers through the right channels is also about data gathering that builds intelligence for the future or is it just the right connection channel?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

I actually feel really good about the data that we have on our guests. We have extensive data.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

I think that we had kind of a, maybe not a singular focus, but close to around email because it was obviously we could present the information, the offer, the communication to the guests in a great way. We could get in front of them and we made a huge effort to collect emails over the last 10-15 years. That channel is still going to be important for us. We can use that data now with all the tools that are available to go out and use tons of different paid media networks that do personalize. We can go through other companies that we can kind of bump our list against their list and then make sure we're delivering the right ad to the right person.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

We can use lookalike modeling, even for prospects who we don't necessarily have in our database, to make sure that we're targeting the right people. This is true not only with traditional digital media, but TV. Tons of TV now are things where you can run ads that go down to the individual person, which is important for us because obviously we're not a mass marketed type item. By the way, that's traditional media. Then you add social media, you have influencers boosting influencers' own posts about your product and then using that creative to actually just run it in those social media channels at the same time using TikTok, which historically we have really not been engaging. All of these things made total sense for a lot of time because obviously we did have a much better, more efficient communication channel.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

As things shift, we have to be out front of those as well and take the same level of sophistication and data that we have and just leverage them in different ways.

[David Katz, Managing Director at Jefferies]

Understood. Thank you very much.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Thanks.

[Operator]

We'll take our next question from Jeff Stantial with Stifel. Your line is open.

[Jeff Stantial, Managing Director of Equity Research at Stifel]

Hey, good afternoon everyone. Thanks for taking our questions. Maybe just starting off on the initial fiscal 2026 guidance, which is where we're getting the most questions this afternoon. Angela, you listed out some of the puts and takes that factored in. One that seems to be missing, or at least that we didn't hear, was sort of how you're thinking about lift ticket or window ticket sales this year. Is it your expectation that lift ticket unit sales are down year-on-year again, similar to what we saw this past season and one or two before that? Is it your expectation that should stabilize on some of these efforts as quickly as fiscal 2026?

[Jeff Stantial, Managing Director of Equity Research at Stifel]

Similarly, just how should we think about the blended price growth or decline given these changes to the Buddy Pass system and the more dynamic pricing strategy, maybe net of the typical price taking action that we've seen from you historically? Thanks.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, thanks, Jeff, for the question. Yeah, we did talk about just on visitation, while Rob was commenting on. We do expect some offset to the pass visitation to occur on growth on lift ticket visitation and with our pricing actions, while we're taking some opportunities to introduce new products like Epic Friends and those, we still expect to be slightly positive on lift ticket revenue. I'll maybe go through some of the other kind of gives and takes that I tried to outline. You know, on the midpoint of the guidance relative to last year, it's up about $26 million. We called out obviously the Resource Transformation Plan playing a big role in that of up $38 million. Also the normalized kind of conditions within Australia being another $9 million.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

On top of that really coming from growth, both the pass price growth that we took, but also our lift ticket prices is part of that as well, and then improved ancillary. Those are kind of the positives, right, and those are being offset by our pass unit sales, right, which will have a negative impact on visits and then normal just expense and labor inflation.

[Jeff Stantial, Managing Director of Equity Research at Stifel]

That's great. Thanks for all that extra color, Angela. Turning over to the Epic Friends, you know, changes to the structure there. Rob or Angela, can you just maybe start off by helping frame for us the materiality of Buddy passes historically, whether in terms of total unit revenue contribution, just any metrics that you could provide there. As we think about sort of the overall return on this, on this change, is it your expectation that that one time sort of pricing hit in year one can be recouped by higher volume of lift ticket sales? Should we really think about this more as a longer term investment where the return manifests over time through sort of long term replenishment of that funnel for new sport and lap skiers and ultimately conversion over to pass sales? Any extra color, that would be great, thanks.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, sure.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

I would say Buddy tickets historically are a material part of lift ticket sales. Angela, have we disclosed that before?

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, there's the pie chart in our investor presentation where you can see, right, it's about 7% of total lift revenue, but right, it is 20% of paid lift ticket revenue that comes from those benefit tickets.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

It's material and that gives you kind of a sizing of it. What I would say is, I think our view is that it is something that we would expect to be a positive right to the year. We're not expecting it to be negative to the year. I think obviously it's something that'll grow over time, but we do see that. In large part it's because of course, we're going to be giving a discount, an additional discount to some people who are already using the program.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

We're expecting more people to use the program now that we're going to promote it in a much more significant way now that the discount is just 50% across the board for everybody, now that we're giving the discount to pass holders in the fall, not just pass holders in the spring, and obviously have been more clear about the ability to turn it into the following year for a pass. In total, we just feel like we will ultimately add more visits and that is something that is contributing to the lift ticket growth that we're expecting for this year, as we talked about earlier.

[Jeff Stantial, Managing Director of Equity Research at Stifel]

Thank you very much.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Thanks.

[Operator]

We'll move next to Stephen Grambling with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

[Stephen Grambling, Head of US Gaming, Lodging & Leisure Research at Morgan Stanley]

Hey, thank you. A couple of follow-ups on the moving parts you ran through in the guidance for the year ahead. Do you generally anticipate that some of the efforts to communicate the new pricing and marketing will be incurred this year or is that more of a 2027 thing? As we think about the potential for recovery and visitation and top line in 2027, will there also be a step up in incremental costs?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, I think two things. One is, I think there are opportunities actually to offset. As we use more sophisticated technology in our marketing department to actually get more efficient with our overall cost, which I think is kind of an overall view that we have about the business going forward, we believe that there are continued opportunities for us to drive resource efficiency and marketing is one of those places.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Our goal is to take those savings and obviously redeploy them into investments that we think could be more productive. While we do see that there will be additional investments that we have to make both within our marketing group and of course, on the mountain in our employees, as we look to take the experience up, we also feel like there are other opportunities for us to take costs out of the business. The investments that we want to make are not ones that we think should pull down the margin at all.

[Stephen Grambling, Head of US Gaming, Lodging & Leisure Research at Morgan Stanley]

That's helpful. One other follow-up. How are you thinking about the net impact from the disruption at Park City last year versus this year? Is that a tailwind in your expectations or a headwind?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, it's definitely a tail in our minds.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Obviously, there could be some guests that didn't have a good experience and are concerned about returning, but we see the experience was so challenging last year, and we think the tail from that likely was last season where I feel like this year we're going to be going in and the team, I think, there has done a great job of preparing for the season. I think we're in a great spot to deliver a very high level of experience all season long. I think that's something that's going to come through and we're seeing evidence of that in the broader market bookings as well in Park City. For us, I think we're starting off in the right spot and we feel like it's a tailwind.

[Stephen Grambling, Head of US Gaming, Lodging & Leisure Research at Morgan Stanley]

Great, thank you.

[Operator]

Moving next to Laurent Vasilescu with BNP Paribas. Your line is open.

[Laurent Vasilescu, Managing Director at BNP Paribas]

Oh, good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking my question. The March Investor Day laid out a vision, I think, on slide 45 to have pass revenues go from 64% of the mix to over 75% over time. Rob, with the comments provided earlier on the lift tickets, where do you want that mix rate to go over time? Should it still go over the 75%? Are you happy with that rate at 64% currently?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

I would say, you know, right now I think my primary focus is on overall visitation to the resorts and overall lift revenue. I would say that I do think, you know, there's some pullback, you know, that is maybe to be expected given the kind of rapid growth that we saw, you know, over the last four years.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

I actually feel that, yeah, there's continued opportunity, just like we talked about with Epic Friend Tickets and moving people, you know, through lift tickets. Those are all opportunities for us to ultimately convert them into a pass. We absolutely are going to continue to march forward, you know, as we get new visits from every source to convert them and drive our path to the stuff. It's ultimately, you know, it's the best deal. It's the cheapest per day price. As people get more comfortable, you know, and more willing to commit in advance, we think we can transition them into those products. Again, it starts with visitation growth. Overall visitation growth.

[Laurent Vasilescu, Managing Director at BNP Paribas]

Okay, very helpful. Thank you. Tonight's press release outlines that you expect your December 2025 season date growth rate to be comparable to what you saw for the month of September.

[Laurent Vasilescu, Managing Director at BNP Paribas]

Can you maybe comment a bit more about this? What gives you the confidence that the trends remain consistent going forward for the next few months?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

What I would say is every time we put out some color commentary on that, we use the trends, we're seeing how they're shifting. It is true that as we go into the last deadlines, it is more heavily weighted to new than renew. There's always a little bit more uncertainty at the same time. Obviously a lot of the selling season is behind you. We take all of those things into an estimate. We use forecasting to come up with what we see going forward. It doesn't mean we're going to be precisely accurate each time, but we try and give people kind of our best assessment of every piece of data that we have at the moment.

[Laurent Vasilescu, Managing Director at BNP Paribas]

Okay, thank you very much.

[Laurent Vasilescu, Managing Director at BNP Paribas]

Best of luck.

[Operator]

We'll move next to Patrick Scholes with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

[Patrick Scholes, Managing Director of Lodging and Leisure Equity Research at Truist Securities]

Hi. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to talk about the dividend coverage. When I run some back of the envelope numbers, and certainly I could be off in my assumptions here, at the low end of the guide, it looks like the dividend is not fully covered by the free cash flow. Assuming I'm not completely wrong in my calculations, my question is how comfortable are you taking on some debt, assuming you come in at the lower end of the guide to maintain that dividend, and along that line, at what net leverage ratios are you comfortable with? Thank you.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, we're very comfortable with the current leverage ratios that we have. We think they provide a lot of room for the company, especially given the stability of the business.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

That has given us comfort on our dividend levels, and yeah, we're certainly comfortable if it means that leverage goes up a little bit, given where we're starting from. That said, I think we've been really clear that to show an increase in our current dividend, we'd need to see a material improvement in free cash flow. In terms of the current dividend, yeah, we're comfortable with that.

[Patrick Scholes, Managing Director of Lodging and Leisure Equity Research at Truist Securities]

Okay. So would take on a little bit of leverage if needed, if needed to be in that scenario. Next, my follow-up question here. Curious as to, in your pass sales, what have been the trends for international guests? I know you've got probably a lot of moving parts there. When we say international, kind of depends what country wants to visit us at this moment and what doesn't. How is that looking?

[Patrick Scholes, Managing Director of Lodging and Leisure Equity Research at Truist Securities]

Say Mexico versus Europe versus Canadians, what are trends you're seeing and has sort of the negative rhetoric, has that been a, I guess a negative for you because you did see some deceleration in pace since your May update? Thank you.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, I think what I'd say is that certainly no trend there that's material enough to affect the overall results that we're talking about. I think we've not seen any specific evidence of a shift per se in future international visitation. Now, I would say international visitation has gone down if you look back over the last five, seven, eight years for a whole variety of reasons, some of which was the dollar, some of which was some of the rhetoric and stuff like that of the past or concern about visas or that.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

At this point, we don't see that as a major issue one way or the other as we go into next season.

[Patrick Scholes, Managing Director of Lodging and Leisure Equity Research at Truist Securities]

Okay, thank you.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Thanks.

[Operator]

We'll take our next question from Arpine Kocharian with UBS. Your line is open.

[Arpine Kocharian, Managing Director at UBS]

Hi, thank you so much for taking my question. I was wondering if you could give a little bit more color where you're seeing most weakness in your consumer base and maybe where you're seeing more sort of a resilient customer. Is there anything else you would highlight on destination versus regional resorts that you saw in past sales trends? You also talked about less tenured pass holders maybe not continuing at the same rate as last year. Is there anything else you would highlight that you saw in past purchase trends that we should be aware of getting into the season here? I have a quick follow-up.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, sure. I think one of the things I would say is that a lot of the results that we're seeing are fairly consistent between a lot of different guest demos, geos, pass type, new, renew. I mean, yes, we do obviously have lower renewal rate for one year or less pass holders. That's true. I'd say broadly that maybe the takeaway from the results is this broad-based result in performance, which is one of the reasons why we pegged, you know, sometimes if we're seeing, we have so many different pass products and so many different resorts that if there's an issue with one resort or an issue with a region or an issue with a guest group, we would typically then see that show up. When you see it so broad-based, it says one of two things.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Either there's just a broad, potentially, like again, we grew the market dramatically. Ikon was growing dramatically and now you're seeing kind of like maybe a maturation or stability of the overall market. Even if you just look at the NSAA National Ski Areas Association data over the last couple of years, it's the first couple years in a long time where pass visits have actually declined and lift ticket visits have actually increased. That's where the growth that you saw actually came from. There's probably some market maturity because of the rapid growth of the last couple of years. It's also why when we talk about our marketing effort and why we're not connecting, because obviously we're using, even though the content is not the same for each guest group, a lot of our marketing approaches are consistent and wide.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

In my mind, it highlights that that's an opportunity for us as we go forward. There's nothing that I can call out specifically about some group or another.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

One thing I'll just add on the consumer piece on renewals is we're not seeing any change in kind of that net migration behavior as well. We're continuing to see about the same amount of trade up as trade down as we've seen over the last few years. You're not seeing the renewal base be kind of a people pulling back because of pricing or trading down. We're not seeing that dynamic within our renewal.

[Arpine Kocharian, Managing Director at UBS]

Interesting. Thank you, that's very helpful. Just to go back to the EBITDA bridge, you mostly covered this question earlier, but I was wondering what needs to happen for you to hit the upper end of your guidance range versus midpoint? You obviously talked about more nimble pricing in off peak periods. Maybe more targeted approach to drive window traffic.

[Arpine Kocharian, Managing Director at UBS]

It sounds like that has the potential to impact list volume as soon as this season. Is it just a matter of sort of those strategies working for you to hit the upper end of the guidance range? Thank you.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

I think the range usually, I mean the biggest driver is always visitation. In terms of the range that we put out because that impacts everything. It impacts all of our ancillary and flows through at a very high rate. Visitation is really the key for us on both ends of the spectrum of the guidance range.

[Arpine Kocharian, Managing Director at UBS]

What needs to, for you, what needs to happen for you to hit the upper end of your visitation guidance?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

I think in the end there's obviously opportunity for us to outperform either on pass or on lift ticket visitation. We've got a number of assumptions that go into how we come up with guidance, and there's always going to be kind of up or down estimate around each one. Sometimes things will work earlier than you think. Of course, that's true. Sometimes things don't work as well as you think. It's one of the reasons why we have a range. It's not possible for us to pinpoint exactly, but it's meant to say that we feel when we are looking at the totality of the business that this is the most likely range that we'll wind up in.

[Arpine Kocharian, Managing Director at UBS]

Thank you.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We'll take our next question from Ben Chaiken with Mizuho. Your line is open.

[Ben Chaiken, Equity Analyst at Mizuho]

Hey, thanks for taking my questions. Rob, you mentioned evaluating the pass product offering in the release and the Q&A a few times. I guess just taking a different perspective. Where do you see the largest holes with the pass? Not asking like the strategy necessarily, which I think is where the conversation has been, but what are you trying to solve for? Where do you think Vail is lacking to the extent that you do and where are the largest areas to improve? Thanks.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, I think we've got a pretty broad portfolio. It's not that I feel like we're missing a particular product, but I'm not sure, with this many products, that we are pricing these products in the optimal way, either against each other or against the need that we're looking for for each segment.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

I also think there's opportunities for us to look at the benefits we provide on our passes, which again largely have not changed that much over the years, and who gets what and why and where and all of that. I think what you're seeing, it's a little bit like what we said about resource transformation for the company, which is, we added a lot of resorts over a relatively short period of time and are now taking the opportunity to go back and say, okay, wait a minute, we can do things a lot smarter than we've been doing them when we were just in full acquisition mode. The same is true for pass.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

We've added a lot of products over a very long period of time and have not really gone back to say, wait a minute, how do we optimize each one of these price relationships or benefit relationships? In our minds, it is a product and pricing piece, but it's not necessarily because we see some gaping, obvious hole that we need to fill. I think one of the things that we did identify was Buddy tickets and Epic Friend Tickets and the benefit tickets. That was something that we identified, it wasn't simple enough, it wasn't clear enough, it wasn't really moving the needle the way we wanted. Yes, we certainly addressed that, as you saw for this season.

[Ben Chaiken, Equity Analyst at Mizuho]

Got it. That's helpful. And then just one quick follow-up. You've mentioned kind of benefits a few times, I guess.

[Ben Chaiken, Equity Analyst at Mizuho]

What's your thought process on adding additional member benefits or perks to the pass and attempt to increase the year-round utility? I think there's a few passes out there that provide these other ancillary benefits to pass holders. It'd be great to get your take on that strategy.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

I think that's something that we absolutely need to look at. I also want to make sure if we do something that it's not just like window dressing, that it's something that really will move the needle and that, you know, if we're going to, certainly if it's coming from our company and we're going to put time and effort and our own energy to it. If it's a third-party benefit, then it has to be a partnership that we want to really get behind. Either one of those, I think, in our minds, the primary benefit obviously is skiing.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Once we get beyond that, now it's, when we've got our Epic Mountain Rewards, which gives people the 20% discount on a lot of our ancillary lines of business. Once we start going beyond that, it needs to be something that should make a difference. Also, I think we're in a good moment in time to start exploring all that.

[Ben Chaiken, Equity Analyst at Mizuho]

Thank you.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Thanks.

[Operator]

We'll move next to Brandt Montour with Barclays. Your line is open.

[Brandt Montour, Director and Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Great, thanks, everybody. My first question is on the guidance. You know, you guys gave the usual sort of normal weather implied in guidance. I just was hoping maybe Rob could put a finer point on that. Last year seemed like it was really good weather, but was that normal or was that better than normal? I know the years prior to that would be obviously firmly worse than normal, but maybe you can just give us a little bit of help with what you sort of baked in there.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah. Thanks, Brandt. I would say last year we had a pretty normal ramp across most of our regions where we were able to get terrain open kind of on a typical schedule. It actually finished for the year. Q3 actually had kind of a fall off on some of those conditions. Again, that doesn't usually drive as much of the overall impact as being able to get kind of open and terrain open ahead of some of those peak seasons. We didn't see any unusual disruptions, I would say like we've called out in some of the other two years. It was much more of a typical pattern, though I wouldn't say it was like above average snowpack or snowfall year by any means last year.

[Brandt Montour, Director and Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Okay, great, thanks for that. On the lift ticket strategy and the discussion around that, I think it was, you know, I think the pitch was pretty clear. The message from you guys today is that the optimization opportunity exists. When I'm absorbing this from you guys, you guys, and I don't want to say it sounds like discounting or anything like that, but smarter marketing, smarter pricing. Is there a risk that as you improve the attractiveness of the lift ticket, you could cannibalize early commitment? I know that would be a little bit on a delay because you're marketing day tickets after the pass selling season. Those same folks are probably going to overlap in terms of who you're reaching with that marketing. Is that a risk for the following year going down that road?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

I think it's what I'd say, yes, it's a risk in terms of, it's something we pay a lot of attention to. If you look at the differences between window, the walk up window or advance lift ticket prices and the price you pay if you buy in advance, if you buy in a pass before the season, that gap has widened dramatically over the years. In particular when we took pass pricing down four years ago. When you, you know, there's in our minds there's plenty of room to be more aggressive and creative on lift ticket pricing without necessarily sacrificing pass business. It is absolutely something we're very cognizant of and pay close attention to.

[Brandt Montour, Director and Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Great. Thanks everybody.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Thanks.

[Operator]

We'll take our next question from Chris Woronka with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

[Chris Woronka, Director and Senior Equity Analyst of Hotel/Lodging REITs and Leisure at Deutsche Bank]

Hey, good afternoon, Rob. Good afternoon, Angela. I guess the first question I'm thinking about, Rob, is strategically, you know, the idea to kind of go after more volume. You just talked about making ski more accessible to a wider range of people. Is this more about an age, you know, an age bucket or a certain demographic? I'm trying to kind of square, like, where those people are going now if they're not going skiing and, you know, is price, how confident are you? I don't know if you've done survey work or other things around that. How confident are you that an investment in price, so to speak, and other things in the experience is going to get those folks to your mountains versus whatever else they're doing today? Thanks.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, sure.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

One is, I think, yeah, we need to make sure that even within whoever is going to ski next year, that we're getting our fair share. That's representative of the quality of our resorts, the quality of how we engage with them, and to make sure that we've got the right price, you know, matrix to optimize our overall lift revenue. That does start with that. I would say, I think, like, this is one of the things that's important to understand about the ski industry. It's constantly in flux. There's a ton of people every year that go out of the ski industry and a ton of people every year that come in, and then a ton of people every year that come back or take two years off or three years off. Some people that go for two days the next year could go for four.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Actually, even within, like, if we took the total number of people in, let's just start with the U.S., that know how to ski, so therefore could take a ski vacation, there's a lot of opportunity to move frequency skier visits within that without necessarily convincing somebody who never skis to ski. That is really our primary target. That is a combination, right? It's not just price. We've got to get the right message in front of them. We've got to make the right emotional connection to them, to their friends or family, to their kids, depending on who it is. You have to have the right overall mix of value to move.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Some of these folks, obviously, they are the least committed skier, but again, it's not, you know, there's a huge percentage of the market each year that's going in and out, so to speak, and a huge percentage that's moving their frequency. It's within all of that. It's not like we're selling soap and everybody's buying a bar of soap, and now you're just trying to convince somebody who bought some other brand to buy yours. This is a product that is, you know, yeah, that is very much a discretionary vacation choice. We think there's real opportunity for us to drive overall frequency up. I would say, you know, when you look at, you know, I mean, and Chris, you know, you go back a long way, I go back a long way.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

It's like, yeah, people have been talking about the fact that the ski industry never grows, but two years ago, right, we hit a record. Now people say, oh, well, that's Covid, but okay, that's fine, maybe. In the end, right, it was still, or was it three years ago? I guess that was the record. In the end, right, it shows that there's enough people in the U.S. to actually do that. In the end, for us, it's not, it's about getting people out and getting people to the resort and getting more days.

[Chris Woronka, Director and Senior Equity Analyst of Hotel/Lodging REITs and Leisure at Deutsche Bank]

Yeah, it makes sense. Thanks. Thanks for all that color, Rob. Super helpful. Just had a follow-up on CapEx and the question is kind of, you know, almost like what you're solving for there. I know with Ty that you guys identify projects. There's a maintenance piece to it, but, you know, I guess.

[Chris Woronka, Director and Senior Equity Analyst of Hotel/Lodging REITs and Leisure at Deutsche Bank]

Do you think CapEx, is there a step function or CapEx you think needs to jump up to try to, you know, is that part of your plans, get people back and adding new amenity, whatever it might be? Or you think, hey, capital plan is going to be what it's going to be year to year as constraints based on, you know, where we are, EBITDA, that kind of thing. I'm really just trying to get at whether you think a bigger uptick in CapEx would actually help if it's necessary or if you plan to do it in the near future? Thanks.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, I guess I'd say, I think absolutely. We're always going to be upgrading lifts and we announced a new lift for next year, obviously, and that's critical, but it can't.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

I think we need to realize also as a company and as an industry that it can't just be about lifts. It's not the only thing that matters to people. In our minds, one of the things where I think we're kind of at the beginning of this and we've made some initial forays, we think there's technology that can make a big difference. How people use technology and the digital experience, how it makes it easier for them to rent skis, how it makes it easier for them to connect with their ski instructor, how it makes it easier for them to get food, how it makes it easier for them to figure out how to book or get around a resort or, you know, overall book a vacation.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

I think these are all things that are critical that really speak to the entirety of the guest experience when they come to us. Those are things where we really have both a unique advantage, right, because obviously we own and operate all our resorts. They're all on a common platform and it's where you invest dollars that actually impact everyone's experience with all of our resorts, rather than a singular lift which affects one resort for some people who use that lift. That says we have to keep investing in lift. When you look back historically, I think you've seen us, we have spent a lot of money on lifts over the last four years. That's continuing.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

We're still going to keep proposing lift, but I think the differentiator is going to be in this other area where I think it is actually not as capital intensive, right, as trying to replace every lift on Vail Mountain or something like that. It is where we're putting our focus at this point. We're not making any changes to our long term capital guidance, but to the extent that we saw opportunities that made sense to do it, of course we'd come back to everybody and share that. At this point we're not seeing that.

[Chris Woronka, Director and Senior Equity Analyst of Hotel/Lodging REITs and Leisure at Deutsche Bank]

Okay, very good. Thanks guys.

[Operator]

This concludes the Q&A portion of today's call. I would now like to turn the call back over to Rob Katz for closing remarks.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Thank you. This concludes our fiscal year-end earnings call. Thanks to everyone who joined us today. Please feel free to contact Angela or me directly should you have any further questions. Thank you for your time this afternoon and goodbye.

[Operator]

This concludes today's Vail Resorts Fiscal 2025 Year-End Conference Call and Webcast. You may now disconnect your line at this time. Have a wonderful day.

Participants

Executives

• Angela Korch, CFO
• Rob Katz, CEO

Analysts

• Jeff Stantial, Managing Director of Equity Research at Stifel
• Laurent Vasilescu, Managing Director at BNP Paribas
• Patrick Scholes, Managing Director of Lodging and Leisure Equity Research at Truist Securities
• Shaun Kelley, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America
• Chris Woronka, Director and Senior Equity Analyst of Hotel/Lodging REITs and Leisure at Deutsche Bank
• Brandt Montour, Director and Equity Research Analyst at Barclays
• Arpine Kocharian, Managing Director at UBS
• Stephen Grambling, Head of US Gaming, Lodging & Leisure Research at Morgan Stanley
• Ben Chaiken, Equity Analyst at Mizuho
• David Katz, Managing Director at Jefferies