Vail Resorts Q4 2026 Earnings Report

Vail Resorts EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$5.34
• Consensus EPS: -$5.35
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.01
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Vail Resorts Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $278.07 million
• Expected Revenue: $269.30 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$8.77 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Vail Resorts Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2026
• Date: 9/28/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Monday, September 28, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

Vail Resorts (NYSE:MTN) is a mountain resort company that operates a portfolio of ski and summer resorts, primarily in the United States, Canada and Australia. Its properties offer skiing, snowboarding and other outdoor recreational activities, along with lodging, dining, retail, equipment rentals, lessons and related guest services.

The company’s resort portfolio includes well-known destinations such as Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone in Colorado; Park City in Utah; Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia; and Perisher in New South Wales, Australia. Vail Resorts also operates resorts in other U.S. states, including California, Vermont, New Hampshire, Michigan and Wyoming.

Vail Resorts markets access to its destinations through the Epic Pass portfolio, which includes season passes, multi-resort passes and related vacation products. The company has also expanded its business through acquisitions and resort development. Its history traces to the founding of Vail Associates in 1962, while Vail Resorts became a publicly traded company in 1997.

Vail Resorts Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Fiscal 2026 demonstrated business resilience: despite a 13% decline in skier visitation, lift revenue fell only 3.5% and pass revenue increased 4%; resort-reported EBITDA was $746 million, in line with guidance.
• Negative Sentiment: Pass sales remain pressured heading into fiscal 2027, with units down 12%, days sold down 10%, and sales dollars down 6%. Management expects delayed purchases and lift-ticket demand to recover part of the shortfall, but U.S. visitation is not expected to fully return to fiscal 2025 levels.
• Neutral Sentiment: Fiscal 2027 guidance calls for resort-reported EBITDA of $805 million to $865 million and net income of $158 million to $233 million, reflecting a significant weather-related visitation recovery but also roughly 4% cost inflation, higher marketing spending, normalized incentive compensation, and margin pressure.
• Positive Sentiment: The resource-efficiency program is on track to exceed its original $100 million annual savings target, with an additional $30 million of technology efficiencies identified through fiscal 2028 and approximately $25 million of incremental savings expected in fiscal 2027.
• Positive Sentiment: Vail is investing in its long-term Epic Experience strategy, including personalized digital commerce, expanded gear rentals, premium lessons, improved dining, and major Park City lift and access projects intended to increase loyalty, ancillary spending, and guest lifetime value.

Presentation

[Operator]

I will now turn the call over to Connie Wang, Vice President of Investor Relations at Vail Resorts. You may begin.

[Connie Wang, VP of Investor Relations at Vail Resorts]

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Vail Resorts' fiscal 2026 fourth quarter earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today are Rob Katz, our Chief Executive Officer, and Angela Korch, our Chief Financial 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 annual report on Form 10-K, and actual future results may vary materially.

[Connie Wang, VP of Investor Relations at Vail Resorts]

Forward-looking statements in our press release issued this afternoon, along with our remarks on this call, are made as of today, September 28, 2026, and we undertake no duty to update them as actual events unfold. Today's remarks also include certain non-GAAP financial measures. 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 opening remarks.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Thank you, Connie. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter earnings call. Looking back at fiscal 2026, while it was an exceptionally challenging weather year, it also demonstrated the resilience of our business model that was intentionally built over time. In particular, our advanced commitment strategy and resource efficiency transformation plan delivered meaningful stability that enabled us to stay focused on our long-term objectives.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

The year also underscored the value of the investments we've made in our people, operations, and the guest experience. Even in a difficult weather environment, we achieved record guest satisfaction scores and strong employee engagement and retention, demonstrating the importance of the investments we've made in talent and strong execution across the business. That said, we recognize that our stock price performance has been disappointing over the last couple of years, and the board and company are not standing still.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Over the past 18 months, we have accelerated the pace of change across the organization as we strengthened our leadership team with a new CEO and Chief Revenue Officer, added a new board member with extensive hospitality experience, revamped our marketing approach, including increasing marketing spend, adjusting channel mix, elevating resort branding and messaging, and optimizing products and pricing. We also expanded our resource efficiency transformation program by $30 million and launched a new company-wide guest focus growth strategy, Epic Experience. The actions we have taken are grounded in a clear view of where we can improve and have the greatest opportunity to strengthen the business and drive strong competitive differentiation.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

We have moved with urgency, but while remaining disciplined, very mindful that in an operationally driven company with over 50,000 team members, speed has to be balanced with executional excellence to ensure we are building a great company for the long term. Our focus remains on delivering on these priorities and demonstrating their value through sustained improvement in financial performance. While many of these initiatives are in the early stages, we are encouraged by the progress we are seeing across the business.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

In marketing, our changes in media strategy heading into last winter helped improve pass sale trends by approximately five points compared to the earlier selling period. During the past season, we made changes to our products and pricing across lift tickets with the introduction of Epic Friend Tickets and super advanced lift ticket pricing, along with targeted pricing actions at certain resorts and time periods.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

As mentioned on the last call, those new products and strategies had strong results despite the weather, and we outperformed the industry in lift ticket visitation. With all of these changes to our marketing approach, we also benefited from increases in unaided brand awareness from destination guests for our top resorts. Heading into this upcoming winter season, while pass sales remain down to prior year during this selling period, third-party data indicates we continue to outperform the broader industry, even more so on comparable unlimited products.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

While we are clearly not satisfied with any decline in pass sales, this is not necessarily surprising given the severity of the conditions we experienced this past season and the massive growth we saw in pass sales in the previous five years, especially in our frequency products, which continue to see the largest declines to date and are our least committed pass holder group.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Angela will discuss the results in more detail, but we do believe that a portion of the decline is likely due to delayed decision-making rather than reduced overall intent to ski next season. This creates an opportunity for potential improvements for pass sales in the final selling season and/or ultimately through in-season lift ticket purchases next year. Based on historic U.S. ski market data, visitation typically recovers quickly following a season with poor conditions when the following year has normal conditions. We are positioned well to capture that recovery given the breadth of our owned and operated network and our ability to market across that network through our pass and lift ticket products. That said, last season was a true anomaly, and it certainly creates risk heading into next season.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

In addition to the marketing changes discussed, we are also making progress across our resource efficiency transformation plan and our Epic Experience growth strategy. Starting with the resource efficiency transformation plan, we remain on track to exceed our original $100 million target of annual savings and announced an additional $30 million of identified technology-related efficiencies that we expect to realize by FY 2028.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Turning to Epic Experience, this is our long-term strategy we announced this summer, which provides the framework for our next phase of growth. While several of the initiatives behind Epic Experience were already underway, the strategy aligns them around a common objective, creating a more seamless, personalized, and differentiated guest experience that drives greater loyalty, visitation, and guest lifetime value.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

What makes this opportunity unique is our ability to connect the entire end-to-end guest experience across our resorts, products, ancillary services, and digital platforms in a way and at a scale that is not easily replicated by others. I want to touch on the five key pillars of Epic Experience, starting with guest engagement and the digital experience. As part of Epic Experience, we are expanding the My Epic app into a personalized digital companion for the entire ski experience, bringing planning, purchasing, and in-resort engagement into a single platform.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

This month, we introduced native in-app commerce and added Apple Pay and Google Pay for pass offerings, and will shortly be launching that functionality for lift tickets across all our resorts, making it even easier for guests to transact within our ecosystem. Next, we are reimagining how guests access and use gear with My Epic Gear. Over a multiyear timeframe, we will allow guests the ability to rent the gear they want, when they want, where they want, without the need for either transporting their gear or going through today's current lengthy rental process.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

This season, we will roll out pick-your-own demo gear and an updated web platform. Then in FY 2028, we will be rolling out the first full incarnation of the program, along with full personalized app integration. For Ski and Ride School, we are elevating lessons into a more personalized mountain experience. This includes upgrading the private lesson experience through Epic Ascent, a premium private lesson offering that provides dedicated concierge support, personalized trip planning, and enhanced benefits that help guests build confidence and deepens their connection to skiing and riding.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

In parallel, we are expanding the digital ski school experience across our U.S. destination resorts, allowing for a seamless arrival with direct-to-lesson digital check-in and real-time updates and progress monitoring within the app. For our on-mountain dining, we are elevating the ski day classics: burgers, chicken fingers, chili, hot dogs, fries, and mac and cheese, by investing in higher quality ingredients and refined presentation.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

We see an opportunity to make dining an additive, differentiated part of the entire ski experience and another reason guests choose to spend more time with us on the mountain. In the future, we will be adding technology to improve the guest experience in our restaurants. Finally, delivering an exceptional guest experience starts with people, who will always be at the foundation of this company.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

That is why we continue to invest in our frontline teams through training, development, engagement, and retention initiatives that strengthen our ability to deliver a differentiated guest experience at scale. It is also one of the most important proof points of our company's ability to deliver on Epic Experience with our frontline staffing and talent being a competitive strength today, only accepting 11% of those who apply for frontline roles, versus the challenges the company experienced in staffing just four years ago. By placing the guest at the center of everything we do, we see a significant opportunity to drive higher visitation, deepen guest loyalty, increase ancillary spending, and ultimately grow guest lifetime value.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Through our continued investments across our resorts, the digital experience, and in talent, we are uniquely positioned to differentiate the guest experience with our integrated owned and operated network of world-class destination and regional resorts connected through our pass and marketing ecosystem and supported by a unified data and technology platform.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

These are the building blocks that will ultimately support sustainable long-term growth and value creation. As we noted in a release earlier this month, we have received notices of intent to nominate individuals for election to our board of directors. The board is evaluating those nominees, and given that this process is ongoing, we will not be answering any questions on this topic today. With that, I will turn it over to Angela to walk through the financial results.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Thank you, Rob. Starting with our results for the fourth quarter, resort net revenue was about flat year-over-year. Results were impacted by unfavorable weather conditions in Australia, where cumulative snowfall was more than 50% below the 10-year average. Those conditions pressured visitation and revenue during the quarter, partially offset by growth in Australian pass sales heading into their winter period and revenue growth at Grand Teton Lodge Company. Looking at the full year, as Rob mentioned, fiscal 2026 demonstrated the resilience of our business, despite historically challenging weather conditions across several key markets. Total lift revenue decreased only 3.5%, despite a 13% decline in skier visitation, supported by 4% growth in pass revenue, highlighting the resilience of our advance commitment model.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Fiscal 2026 resort reported EBITDA of $746 million landed in line with the midpoint of the range we provided in June, despite the softer Australia results, reflecting the benefits of not just our advance commitment strategy, but also our disciplined cost management, continued progress on resource efficiency transformation, and the strong execution of our teams across the organization. Turning to pass sales.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Through September 18, pass units declined 12%, days sold declined 10%, and sales dollars including tax were down 6%. Performance through the September deadline remains consistent with the spring selling period, when excluding auto renewal during that period. We believe the performance to date continues to be affected by the prior season's historically challenging conditions. Since the spring deadline, we saw modest improvements in Colorado, Utah, and Tahoe local performance, while the weakness remains concentrated among destination frequency products, especially lower frequency passes.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

This may suggest delayed decision-making for lower frequency guests that may move later into the pass selling period or migrate back into lift ticket products sold during the season. Importantly, we continue to see evidence that we are outperforming the broader industry via third-party data, particularly within comparable unlimited products, which gives us confidence that our competitive position remains strong despite softer overall pass sale trends to date. As Rob noted earlier, we view the current environment as being driven more by delayed purchasing behavior than a structural change in demand. As a result, we see meaningful opportunities to recapture demand through both pass sales and lift tickets in season. With that in mind, I want to spend some time on our fiscal 2027 outlook.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

We are guiding to net income attributable to Vail Resorts of $158 million-$233 million, and resort-reported EBITDA of $805 million-$865 million, including approximately $14 million of one-time costs. Our guidance reflects a meaningful recovery in visitation when compared to the weather-impacted fiscal 2026 season, though we expect visitation will not fully return to fiscal 2025 levels in the U.S.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Given the current pass sale trends, we are not expecting an overall improvement during the rest of the selling season and expect to recapture a meaningful portion of lower pass visitation through increased lift ticket visitation. Importantly, the level of lift ticket visitation embedded in our guidance remains well below historical levels achieved when the pass program was significantly smaller and below levels achieved following the fiscal 2022 pass price reset. Current pass sale trends leave a larger pool of uncommitted guests heading into the season.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

We are making targeted investments in pricing and product optimization and marketing to capture that demand and drive visitation. While these investments are expected to support near-term demand generation, they are also consistent with our larger strategy of strengthening guest awareness, acquisition, and engagement to drive sustainable growth over time. Outside of the expected changes in visitation, we also expect benefits from pricing and capture initiatives across our rental, Ski and Ride School, dining, and other lines of business.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

On the cost side, beyond variable expenses on the increased revenue, our outlook incorporates labor and expense inflation of approximately 4%, including normal wage inflation together with higher utility, fuel, legal, and professional services costs. In addition to inflation and variable expenses, our guidance reflects approximately $20 million from the normalization of incentive compensation relative to fiscal 2026.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Approximately $10 million of incremental marketing investment, $3 million associated with the renewal of the Grand Teton Lodge Company contract, and $3 million of incremental resource efficiency transformation one-time costs. Partially offsetting these cost pressures are approximately $25 million of incremental efficiencies from our resource efficiency transformation program.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Lastly, fiscal 2027 cash taxes are expected to be approximately $75 million-$85 million. To provide context on the outlook and given the magnitude of the severe weather impacts this past year, I also want to compare to the midpoint of our fiscal 2027 guidance to the midpoint of our original fiscal 2026 outlook issued in September of 2025. While fiscal 2027 assumes a meaningful year-over-year recovery in visitation, we expect total visitation to remain modestly below our original fiscal 2026 expectations.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Despite that, total revenue is expected to increase approximately 3% when compared to the fiscal 2026 expectations, driven by stronger ancillary revenue growth. While lift revenue remains relatively flat as targeted lower pricing and product strategies employed to support visitation offset a portion of the pricing-related growth. As a result, implied resort EBITDA margin of 27.3%, excluding one-time costs, is expected to be approximately 200 basis points below our original fiscal 2026 outlook.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Resource efficiency savings offset a portion of the incremental investment spending in areas like marketing, but this continues to demonstrate the value of the resource efficiency transformation program as we fund strategic investments while managing ongoing inflationary pressures. However, with visitation still below our original expectations for last year, inflation growth is outpacing our revenue growth, resulting in margin pressure compared to the original outlook. Turning to capital allocation.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Despite the challenging operating environment this year, we remain confident in the cash flow generation capabilities of our business. Even at the low end of our fiscal 2027 guidance range, we expect to generate positive free cash flow after continuing to fund our capital program and dividend. At July 31st, total liquidity was approximately $0.8 billion, and net leverage was 3.9 times trailing 12 months total reported EBITDA.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Based on our fiscal 2027 resort EBITDA outlook, we expect leverage to decline to approximately 3.5 times by year-end, assuming no change in net debt compared to the year-end fiscal 2026 levels. Additionally, our board declared a quarterly dividend of $2.22 per share, and we have reaffirmed our calendar 2026 core capital plan. Our capital allocation priority remains balancing disciplined returns to shareholders with investing in the opportunities we see to further strengthen our competitive position and support long-term value creation.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

For calendar 2027, we're particularly excited about planned lift investments announced today at Park City Mountain, including the replacement of Silver Lode with our first eight-passenger detachable chairlift in the U.S., and the replacement of Eagle and Eaglette with a new six-passenger detachable chairlift designed to improve access, capacity, and guest flow.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Combined with other recent infrastructure investments, those projects will further enhance the guest experience at one of our largest destination resorts. In summary, while we continue to navigate the lingering impacts of last season's unusually severe conditions, the experience has reinforced the investments we've made to strengthen the business. As we look ahead, we remain focused on executing against the opportunities in front of us while maintaining a disciplined approach to growth, profitability, and capital allocation. With that, I'll turn the call back over to the operator for Q&A.

[Operator]

Thank you. 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 will take our first question from Stephen Grambling with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Stephen Grambling, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Hey, thank you for taking the question. I know you talked a little bit about this. I am wondering if you could maybe just dig into some of the guidance assumptions around revenue, particularly as we just think about closing the gap from where pass sales are now to where the assumption is, I think slightly down for the year. Also, I think you said that ancillary should actually be up, but again, with visitation down. So any additional color in terms of the contributions you are expecting, whether that is gear or other areas?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, I think, ultimately, even though pass sales are down, the total amount of lift tickets that we would have to sell to make up a portion of that, or even all of that, would still be way below, obviously, the lift tickets we sold if you just go back certainly four or five years and obviously even much further below where we were 10 years or 15 years ago, or what you see other resorts doing. Essentially what I would say is going on is that you have had the least committed skier who has come in, for the most part, on the lower frequency pass products that we have had that we added over the last few years. Obviously with last year being so challenging, they are taking most likely a wait and see attitude.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

These are folks who historically bought lift tickets that we recently converted to a pass. Not surprising to see a portion of them as we go into next season, again, probably holding off, waiting to make that commitment. Now, whether they make that commitment in a pass as the pass selling season plays out through early December or whether they ultimately commit through buying a lift ticket, we are not sure that that kind of movement from lift tickets to pass or pass to lift tickets necessarily gets in the way of the overall demand that you will see for the season.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

It is an important reminder that if you go back certainly five years, 10 years, and you see some of the years that we had 20% or even 30% season pass growth, that did not necessarily transfer into visitation growth for the year. It just meant that we were converting people from lift tickets to pass. This year, what we might see is obviously people moving out of a pass into lift tickets as we go into the season. Then on ancillary, yeah, we do expect to see capture growth across all of our ancillary lines of business, including in Ski School and rental and in food.

[Stephen Grambling, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Fair enough. Then maybe one other maybe bigger picture question. There's been a lot of, I think, noise or certainly a lot of hoopla around Meta's Muse and agentic AI. I'm just curious about, I know you have your own agent for helping with consumers, but any thoughts around how agentic AI may unfold, how you may partner with folks, or how you think about leveraging AI to support the business?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, sure. I think, one, it's a core part of the technology transformation, which is part of our resource efficiency transformation that we announced. We do see a huge opportunity to bring AI into a lot of the behind-the-scenes work that we do in many corporate functions and other areas where there's an opportunity for us to gain efficiency, and candidly gain a lot more functionality and ability through a lot of these new softwares, and we will be partnering with a number of people as we look for the best providers on that. I think on the guest side, yeah, we do have an agent out there, but I'd say it's in its infancy.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Really the opportunity for us, and it's definitely on our roadmap to essentially provide essentially a support person of sorts, like a virtual concierge where people can get information about our resorts, and about how to plan their day, and about how to ski the mountain, and anything else that they want really at their fingertips. We see that as a critical next step. Again, one of the ways that we intend to drive guest engagement is absolutely going to be using AI, but also using human beings as well, because we think the core ski experience, whether you're on the mountain or elsewhere, you do need those human touch points. So we see those kind of acting in concert with each other.

[Stephen Grambling, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Great. Thank you so much.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Shaun Kelley with Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Shaun Kelley, Analyst at Bank of America]

Hi. Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. Rob and Angela, I wanted to go through the same as Stephen's question, but maybe a little bit more on the operating expense side. Just walk us through a little bit, and you gave a couple of the buckets, but hopefully a little bit more, if you could, on just normal kind of run rate, operating expense inflation, and then any other things to get back to sort of a more normal level of expense growth.

[Shaun Kelley, Analyst at Bank of America]

Just again, when people, I think, are looking at the revenues versus EBITDA dollars year over year, the expense growth looks a little higher than normal, but obviously, that anticipates probably a different revenue picture. Any thoughts on that and maybe your ability to adjust should the revenue top line maybe not come in as planned? Thanks.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah. Thanks, Shaun. Relative to last year, there definitely are a few moving pieces here. There's obviously the revenue-driven expense that comes with that revenue, the kind of the variable piece that comes with it. But then on top of that, we are seeing higher expense inflation, and so we are expecting about 4% kind of blended all in between labor and expense. On top of that versus last year, Ray, you do have the add back from performance plans that were obviously not paying out last year. There was a $20 million delta that I mentioned there on that cost coming back.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

We also have $10 million incremental that we're investing in marketing to drive some of the strategies in guest capture and to really drive visitation. We had a $3 million adjustment for GTLC, Grand Teton Lodge Company, that's with the new contract. We had $3 million associated with the one-time cost on our transformation plan. All of those headwinds, if you will, are being partially offset then by about $25 million of incremental transformation savings that we will expect year over year.

[Shaun Kelley, Analyst at Bank of America]

Thanks for that, Angela. Rob, maybe just as my follow-up, very big picture. You laid out a lot on the experience side, which is, I think, very important and good to hear. I am curious on just of those initiatives you laid out, which touch on a lot of different parts of the business, what do you think is most financially impactful in the next 12 to 24 months? What do you have an eye on or should investors have an eye on that you think can really move the needle on the financial side? Thanks.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, to me, I think our goal is creating a differentiating experience. So when people come to our resorts, obviously there is a portion of when you go to any ski resort that is about what that ski mountain is like, and obviously we are going to continue to invest in lifts and snowmaking and everything else, just like everybody else will, I assume. That will be great.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

But what we are looking to do is to take almost every other aspect of the experience and have people have the felt sense that it is easier, that it is more personalized. Because skiing is a challenge. We all know that to get to the mountain, gear, and we want people to feel like we are now providing services that candidly other people would struggle to provide that actually makes their experience that much more compelling.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

It is that guest loyalty and the visitation that we will get from that that I think is candidly the most important. I think the biggest singular opportunity financially is going to be gear. It is not something that is going to be in the next 12 months, but I absolutely see it as it is really a transformation of how people engage and use gear. There are very few people in the world that could do that. We are really the only one. That would be both a financial opportunity given how relatively small a percentage of the total amount of gear that is on our mountain do we actually rent.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Then two, it is a guest loyalty opportunity as once we were quite confident that as people get used to that experience, it will be a major shift to go to another resort that may not be able to provide the same experience to them. I think over the next 12 months, I think what will differentiate us is going to be the marketing, and our ability to basically go from country and worldwide passes to resort specific passes, to lift tickets across each one of our resorts, to communicate with guests seamlessly across the entire continuum, to use the data that we are getting from everybody.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

That is what we are looking to leverage. We are unclear, right? I think no one is clear as to exactly how this upcoming season will perform. Our goal right now is to make sure that we are taking share by picking up this bigger pool of uncommitted skiers that are now out there. So that to me over the next 12 and 24 months, that is certainly going to be an important key driver of our financial performance, especially relative to the industry.

[Shaun Kelley, Analyst at Bank of America]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. We will take our next question from Arpine Kocharyan with UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Arpine Kocharyan, Analyst at UBS]

Hi. Thank you very much. Thanks for taking my question. I was hoping you could talk a little bit about what is embedded in the lower end versus higher end of EBITDA range. Is it simply a matter of reasonably good ski season versus choppier season, but overall much better than last year? Just what is within that range, and then I have a quick follow-up.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah. I think a portion of it could be weather, a portion of it is obviously there is economy, there are other factors. But yeah, we try and kind of come up with what we see as the expectation of the most likely outcome. Then we realize that there are so many different factors that could add to that or subtract to that. I think certainly on the upside, if we get a normal ski season, we are estimating that visitation will be down in this upcoming season versus the season two years ago for the U.S. ski industry. To the extent that even in a normal winter, you could absolutely make a case that we could see the visitation come fully back to where we were in 2025.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

If you get certainly a super El Niño or something like that, you could certainly see it even beat that. On the other hand, we are going through a transition where people are going to be moving from passes to lift tickets. There is clearly more variability and risk in that. We feel really good about how we are positioned in that transition to potentially actually again continue to pick up share, but again, there is some variability and risk in that for sure.

[Arpine Kocharyan, Analyst at UBS]

Got it. Thank you. I wanted to go back to the first question that was asked, current margins imply revenue up something like 9%-10% in resort revenues. You mentioned that after a disastrous season, seeing window demand up 25%, 30% is not inconceivable, and that certainly can be true, but isn't it sort of really dependent on weather? Then on the other hand, you also have some positive mix, right? That is helping you given incentives to drive shifts away from one or two-day passes to longer stays, given some of the pricing actions you have taken. Is it possible at all to outline how much mix could be helping you for the year to get to that 9%-10% in resort revenue when you have pass product down 6%?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah. I would say it circles back a little bit to what we said earlier, which is passes are not. Just like when passes were up 20% or up 40%, it did not mean that visitation during the year were going to be up that much. We were just moving people from lift tickets to passes. With passes down right now, we do not see necessarily that that is indicative of lower demand for the season. It could be people moving either later in the pass selling cycle or into lift tickets, back to lift tickets, because a lot of these folks have only been in a pass, really these types of guests, only for the last few years.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

That is one piece of it. From a mix perspective, yes, we are mixing up in terms of our pass, which is good. Although clearly some of these folks may actually either move out of pass into lift tickets or ultimately come in at the end of the pass selling season into lower frequency products. At this point, I think it is pretty hard for us to tell the kind of frequency mix right now. I guess as we think about next season, we are not thinking that there is necessarily an overall frequency change for the U.S. ski industry. If that helps.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

It would be helpful just also to put into perspective versus last year's guidance. We are essentially saying we are going to be modestly below that on visitation, making up that to be flat on lift revenue versus last year's guidance. There are, and that has the blended mix assumption essentially built in there. But remember, we did take some actions to also drive visitation within our pricing strategies as well.

[Arpine Kocharyan, Analyst at UBS]

Right. Thank you very much.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Jeff Stantial with Stifel. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Zane Young, Analyst at Stifel]

Thanks for taking our question. This is Zane Young, on for Jeff Stantial. I imagine you'll have more to share after your final pass sales update at fiscal Q1. Rob, just curious if there's anything you can provide in terms of Gen Z uptake on a 20% discount, and in particular, how you think about the mix of incremental demand, whether you think most of these are new pass holders or coming in from lift tickets, competitors, or if they're new to the sport.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, I think it is a little hard to tell at this point. We will give a more fulsome update when we get to the end of the pass selling season. We've definitely seen some positive results from that program. We're pleased with it. Obviously, it's in the context of the overall market being down. It's always a little bit tricky to. We're not getting certainly the full opportunity that we think we could get in a more normal kind of pass market. Yeah, we still feel very good about that decision, because it aligns with a lot of our other decisions, which is to bring more people into the program.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Certainly, when we look at how we're doing versus others, we feel good about our position. In the end, of course, we'd all rather be in an upmarket. We'd rather last year have been a great ski season versus the worst ever in the Rockies. Ultimately, our job is to really provide the best experience we can and to ensure that we're making inroads and bringing in new guests on a relative basis to the rest of the market.

[Zane Young, Analyst at Stifel]

Great. Thanks. For a follow-up, do you have a sense for what sort of impact, if any, the Deer Valley expansion had last year? Do you think there can be any more incremental share loss this year just as awareness grows and they open up some more terrain?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah. I do not know certainly the exact impact of that, and obviously, last year was a tough year all around, so it is a little hard to assess what that impact would have been. I do think it is really a terrific addition to Deer Valley, no doubt about it, and I feel really good about the investments that we are making in Park City. When you think about it, we have got these two new lifts going in on the Park City side, plus a retrofitted Crescent Lift, plus the Sunrise Gondola that we introduced last year and put in on the Canyons side.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Plus this year, we are putting in the Canyons Village Skyway Gondola from the parking structure to the top, plus a new parking structure at the base of the lift. You think about these are very significant investments. I think over the time that since we have owned Park City, it is like over $200 million that we have invested in Park City. I think it is terrific that Deer Valley is investing in the resort, now we are investing in the resort, and I think that just brings the entire market up, which I think both resorts will really benefit from.

[Zane Young, Analyst at Stifel]

That is great. Thank you.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Ben Chaiken with Mizuho. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Ben Chaiken, Analyst at Mizuho]

Hey, thanks for taking my questions. Just maybe one on guidance and one quick follow-up. The implied top line's up around 9% or 10%, if I'm not mistaken. I would have thought there's an effective ticket price headwind in FY 2027, given the utilization last year on the pass was so low. Maybe where am I off in that line of thinking? Because it sounds like you're actually assuming some price growth or tailwind as part of the algo, if that's correct. Thanks.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Thanks, Ben. When you looked at the increase for ETP, effective ticket price this year, you saw the benefit, right, from just lower utilization on the passes. You're right. That piece is impacting kind of how you think about then the year-over-year impacts of that next year. But what I would do is I would think about this in terms of pass revenue growth that we provided and the assumption on recapturing that on lift tickets and think about those two things, because the ETP impact from both the low pass holder utilization but also the regional mix from this prior year definitely is, of course, that part is a headwind on the lift ticket side for next year.

[Ben Chaiken, Analyst at Mizuho]

Okay. And then maybe just directionally, are you assuming that ancillary grows faster than your lift ticket revenue in 2027?

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Yes. With our capture initiatives and our pricing strategies, that is where we are expecting versus last year's guidance. We are expecting to see revenue growth on ancillary, which is how you are getting to the kind of 3% total revenue growth over last year's guide.

[Ben Chaiken, Analyst at Mizuho]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. We will take our next question from Lizzie Dove with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Lizzie Dove, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Hey, thanks for taking the question. I wanted to ask just in terms of the guidance this year, it is below, obviously, as you talked about what 2025 was, and so that is even with, I think, some assumed weather recovery, it sounds like further cost savings. I am just wondering just structurally, if you think anything has changed about the industry or Vail specifically and whether that is just a 2027 thing or how that impacts kind of how you think about the long term algo that you gave back in March.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, I think the guide we have for next year right now is based on, yeah, some lingering effects from last year, and I think we're seeing that in pass sales. I think as we go into next year, we're saying that we will recover a good portion of the pass sale miss, but not all of the pass sales miss. As I said earlier, we could easily see that that fully recovers. But we are assuming that based on some transition as people go between passes and lift tickets, there could be some kind of slippage between those two.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Candidly, there's a good case to be made that there won't be any. But at this moment, having not seen this kind of dynamic yet play out after the huge explosive growth in pass, we feel like, yeah, that's probably the right way to guide. I would say that, yeah, we are leaning into being more competitive on price in terms of our lift products. Those combined, right, create the kind of guide you're seeing for next year.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

It does not change the algorithm that we see for the business as we go forward. We feel like, yeah, what we outlined at the Investor Day is still 100% what we believe. But as we grow back from the issues of last season, yeah, that may not, and I think we mentioned that at the Investor Day, that may not all come back in the first year.

[Lizzie Dove, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Got it. Thanks. I think you said that you're not giving full CapEx guidance until next quarter, but you mentioned some exciting investments that you're making, Park City, the Grand Teton requirements, and then some tariffs and inflation. I guess high level in the context of cash flow that you talked about and whatnot, I'm curious just high level what you're thinking about for next year's core CapEx plan, whether that can be ahead of this year and if there's any change to kind of what you think of as normalized CapEx requirements longer term.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

No long term change to the core capital guidance. We will adjust it for inflation. So inflation, like you saw kind of in our operating budget, yeah, we are seeing a little bit elevated inflation, and we will have the impacts that we'll call out separately for Grand Teton Lodge. Those we will call out separately, but really in the scheme of relative to this year, very much in line with the spending we've had in this current calendar year.

[Lizzie Dove, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. We will take our next question from Xian Siew with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Xian Siew, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Hi. Thanks for the question. Maybe on the recovery of the lift ticket, can you talk a little bit about how much you think is just the broader industry recovery versus your share gains? It sounds like you are expecting some share gains, but maybe just how do we kind of think about that relative to a broader recovery?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, I would say, we certainly assume that the industry is going to have a significant recovery from last year. The only question is whether the industry is going to get all the way back to the FY 2025 season. I think our assumption is, for the guidance at least, is that it may not, given what we are seeing in our pass sales and what we are seeing in other people's pass sales through third parties. That may or may not happen. Again, as we have said, there is some variability in there, some upside. Certainly could be some downside. It is hard to say. But our view is, yes, that within that, our guidance assumes that we will outperform the rest of the industry, weather adjusted, of course, on lift tickets.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

We will pick up and we will outperform on passes, and we will pick up visitation share as we go into next year. We are not disclosing exactly how much that is versus the industry, but in our minds, that is a key driver of a lot of our strategies, both on the marketing side, product and pricing side, and on the investments we are making in the guest experience. That is how we are setting up the guidance for next year.

[Xian Siew, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Okay, great. Thanks. You talked also about converting some guests who might have been on passes in the past, maybe it is a lower frequency pass, back into a lift ticket potentially this year. Can you talk about how you think about maybe the price that that guest might pay, whereas if they got used to paying a lower price for a visit to go on the Epic Pass or an Epic Day Pass to now having to pay a potentially much higher window price even with the maybe one-month in advance. Maybe just the confidence and the ability to convert that guest going from maybe a lower price day pass to a higher price window pass.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, I think it is one of the key reasons last year why we launched the one month in advance ticket with a 30% off opportunity for people because it blends in in between Epic Day Pass, and obviously a window pass or even a one-week advance lift, sorry. It blends between an Epic Day Pass and a lift ticket, or even a one-week advance lift ticket. Our view was that, yes, it is a little bit more for sure. But it also allows people not to have to pay or commit during the pass selling season. Again, you only have to go back a few years to realize these were folks who were paying lift ticket prices only a few years ago. So in the end, we do not know that that conversion is a huge issue.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Secondly, we are also still going to be heavily promoting, really in its second year of its current incarnation, Epic Friend Tickets, which is a much larger discount, 50% off, if you come with a pass holder. So there is going to be opportunities, we think, for people at almost every stage here. As you get later into November or early December, if people want to book their trip, they will be able to get those lowest pass prices. If they want to wait, they will be able to get the 30-day in advance ticket price.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

If they want to wait all the way to the last day, but they know a pass holder, they can come with that pass holder and get that 50% off offer. So we feel like we have offers and products and prices for each guest along the continuum. And maybe most importantly is these are guests that we're going to be talking to continuously from the beginning all the way through the season. That for us is unique, right? We'll be serving them ads, personalized ads, based on what we know about them, again, initially for passes, then for lift tickets. So we do think that gives us a unique advantage.

[Xian Siew, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Great. Thank you.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Anthony Bonadio with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Anthony Bonadio, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Yeah. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Not to beat a dead horse on the lift tickets, but just given the cost levels there that you just mentioned, I guess, is there any concern around how the consumer backdrop's evolving as we think about rising rates, re-accelerating inflation, as you forecast that demand, and just how you think about those consumer sensitivities more broadly?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, look, I think we are subject for sure to the same dynamics that every travel company has to deal with in terms of overall inflation and affordability and things like that. I would say, though, that when you look at how we are leaning in on lift tickets and on passes, I think certainly with us right now, there is an opportunity, I think, for people to, yeah, still have affordable options on every level. I think our pass has always been viewed as one of the most affordable options in travel.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

We think that positions us quite well. But yes, it is true. Obviously, we should note that we are subject to the economy overall, and certainly if there is a slowdown in travel or, in particular, a slowdown in high-end travel, yeah, that could be an issue for us. We do skew, as the industry does, and us even more, we do skew to the high-end traveler, which has at least so far shown to be a little bit more protected against some of the pricing challenges that other parts of the consumer industry have faced.

[Anthony Bonadio, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Got it. That is helpful. Maybe one for Angela. On capital allocation, can you just talk about your comfort level with the current 3.9x leverage multiple and just how you are thinking about the dividend, the buyback in that context?

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah. The confidence in the balance sheet is still very strong. We expect that our leverage will go down to 3.5x at this year's guidance. So it is elevated off of a really challenging last year. But we think that the balance sheet supports really all of our capital priorities, right? It gives us flexibility for if we had attractive or accretive M&A, which we would prioritize, or what we have already said, which is we are fully committed to our capital spending plan. Then for returning capital to shareholders, yeah, even at the low end of the guidance, like I mentioned, we feel like we are covering both the capital plan and the dividend. So feel very confident where we sit.

[Anthony Bonadio, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Thanks, guys.

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Anthony Berney with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Anthony Berney, Analyst at Jefferies]

Hi, this is Anthony on for David Katz. Thanks for taking our questions. Should we expect additional incremental lift ticket pricing strategies to be unveiled this year, like the Salt and the under 30 tickets, and how should we think about dynamic pricing going forward?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, I would say, we're not going to share any indication on future pricing decisions. All of that is captured within our guidance. I would comment that I think we feel really good about the Epic Friend ticket and the kind of super advanced lift ticket that we announced last year. I think there's room for both of those to continue to grow and for us to continue to optimize on both of them because, obviously, we have a whole season behind us, although a little bit of a challenged season.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

We think there's an opportunity for both of those things. We are going to continue to be opportunistic, certainly on pricing, but I would say still within a fairly disciplined approach. I think that's one of the hallmarks we've had for a long time is taking a disciplined approach to pricing. If we're making a move, it's not something that's reactive about one day or one season. It's something that we think long term is the right strategic positioning for us.

[Anthony Berney, Analyst at Jefferies]

Got it. Thank you. Quick one. Can you just talk a bit about what's driving the negative real estate EBITDA guide? That kind of surprised us. Thanks.

[Angela Korch, CFO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, the real estate guide for next year does not anticipate any new closings, and that's why it's down versus in the prior year, we did have several scheduled closings within the year, and so that's what's creating the year-over-year variance.

[Anthony Berney, Analyst at Jefferies]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. We will take our next question from Chris Woronka with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Chris Woronka, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Rob, if you look at where you are on pass sales, is there anything to think that you could get help from international if that rebounds? I am thinking those guys typically buy an Epic Pass, and if they decide to come closer to last minute, they are going to have to be dealing with a lift ticket. Are there any learnings you look at and say, "Hey, there is a chance that international destination rebounds, that is going to be more helpful than getting a bunch of people closer to home that come last minute?" Does that make sense?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Yeah, it does. I do not think that portion of the market would really be enough to actually drive the overall results for our pass program. I think as we talked about, certainly to the U.S., international visitation has been down along with overall inbound travel and tourism into the U.S. So I think we are a part of that, and so the program is much smaller. I think for Whistler, it remains critical.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Absolutely, we could see, I do not know that that is necessarily, it could be in a pass product, but it could be in a lift ticket either way. But we do see, of course, for Whistler, it is a critical part of their business. Yeah, I do not know that we are anticipating any dramatic change, certainly in the U.S. for inbound international travel, in the upcoming year.

[Chris Woronka, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Okay, fair enough. Then a follow-up, much longer term kind of strategic question. It has been a couple tough years for the Australian season. Is there any point at which you start to think that that is non-core in terms of friction costs and other things? I know the longer term plan for you guys is to maybe get more global, but it is obviously hard to do. Is there any point at which you think Australia becomes too much of a headwind?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

I don't think so at all because, obviously, yes, they have ups and downs in their year, just like a lot of other ski markets do. It can be more variable, certainly, than the Rockies. But one of the things that we feel really good about was, yeah, we're growing the pass program. We grew it quite a bit last year. Obviously, this year, will be tougher following last year's challenging weather. But thinking about it more holistically on a long-term basis, no, the more people we can get in the pass program there, the more we can funnel those folks into the U.S. and into Canada. We are taking a long-term view on the international opportunity inbound into the U.S. It's fairly depressed.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

I'm not sure it's going to be like that forever, and we want to be well-positioned for when, yeah, there's got to be greater visitation into the U.S. So we do see them as a critical part of the network. And yeah, very understanding of the ups and downs. I would say if you look back over the time period since we did those acquisitions, yeah, they have had incredible performance. That's been an incredible investment for us from the beginning in terms of what we've been able to create at those three resorts. So even as we sit today, even with a bad year, it's still been, yeah, a creative investment for us.

[Chris Woronka, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Great. Thanks.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Brandt Montour with Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Brandt Montour, Analyst at Barclays]

Good morning, everybody, or good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to circle back on the FY 2027 guidance versus last year's original guidance and the ancillary expectations that are, well, it's one of the, I guess, the fastest growth driver you have into next year. Just wondering how you get to the confidence around the ancillary, given that destination frequency guests were the weakest pass segment. I would just think logically you'd get more sales from regionals and locals and perhaps folks that probably are showing up last minute and aren't going to utilize ancillary services. So how do you think about that?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

What I would say is I think the destination frequency guest is, I think what we've been trying to share is that, yeah, they're buying less passes right now. Obviously, that's a group that bought, really went up quite a bit over the last few years. But if you go back just a few years before that, they were all buying lift tickets. So we do see a lot of these folks coming back into the market as we think about what the totality of this season is going to look like, both for us and for the industry.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

As these people come in, yeah, we think given what we're putting forward in terms of the experience, in terms of the product and price, in terms of what we've seen over the last couple of years, we feel good that we can grow capture and price within that market. But yes, you're right. I think as we look, really what this comes down to, in a way, in all these questions, is what do people think about the U.S. ski industry for next year? I think our view as we look backwards is that if we have a normal season, actually, there's often pent-up demand for people who didn't get a chance to ski last year who will come out. Again, if you look over the history of the industry, all of these people have historically bought tickets.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

It's really been us that moved a portion of them into destination frequency, low-frequency passes over the last few years. But long-term, this has been a lift ticket market. By the way, we've had such huge growth in that frequency product that even though we're down as we go into next year, it's still incredible to have these folks that we do have locked in ahead of next season, and then we can focus on lift ticket marketing for the rest. So we do feel, and our guidance assumes that, we're going to see maybe not a full rebound to where we were and where the industry was in FY 2025, but from a visitation perspective, we'll get very close.

[Brandt Montour, Analyst at Barclays]

That's helpful, Rob. Thanks for that. I just have one follow-up on that thread, specifically destination guests. You guys call out weaker destination guests, and it looks like you're hoping or you're planning now for some of that to bounce back. We look across our other consumer verticals. A lot of us are in Las Vegas right now for a conference. Vegas' visitation has been down for a while now because the product became very expensive.

[Brandt Montour, Analyst at Barclays]

You guys hold your pass product to very reasonable prices, but you're not in control of the entire vacation basket, right? The question is flights, Airbnbs, resort prices, things that are outside of your control, how much of that is weighing on the overall vacation basket for your key destination consumers that is affecting their ability to come and ski, that there's not much you can do about?

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

I think if you look at the upper income part of the travel sector, I think that part of the travel sector has been performing better, and some of the challenges you're seeing are in other parts of the travel sector. But as I mentioned earlier, it's true that to the extent that the upper income part of the travel sector is going to be hit or because of the economy or other factors, certainly it'll impact us.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

That said, I think that when you look at our results to date, I don't think that the results in passes are related to any kind of economic factors, but are much more related to the weather challenges from last year and a lot of the more less committed skier just not willing to commit as far in advance as we've recently gotten them to do, and so they're going to make that decision closer to or in the season. I also think that to the extent there's any kind of economic issues, we tend to have more stability on that anyway, because on the other side, we've got all these regional and local skiers, and candidly, our overall vacation can be very cost competitive, even though there's other parts of the vacation that are expensive.

[Brandt Montour, Analyst at Barclays]

Okay. Thanks for the thoughts, Rob.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. This concludes our question and answer portion of today's call. I would like to now turn the call back over to Rob Katz for closing remarks.

[Rob Katz, CEO at Vail Resorts]

Thanks, everyone. In closing, fiscal 2026 tested our business in ways few seasons have before. Yet despite these challenges, we continued to strengthen the company, invest in our future, and advance initiatives that we believe will drive growth for years to come. I also want to thank our employees across the organization. Their commitment to our guests, teams, and resorts was on full display this past season, and their passion and execution continue to be one of our greatest competitive advantages. We enter fiscal 2027 with a stronger foundation, a clear strategy, and a significant opportunity to further differentiate the Vail Resorts experience. While the near-term environment remains dynamic, our focus remains on execution, serving our guests, and creating long-term value for our shareholders. Thanks for joining us today.

[Operator]

Thank you. This concludes today's Vail Resorts fiscal 2026 fourth quarter and year-end conference call and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time, and have a wonderful day.

Participants

Executives

• Connie Wang, VP of Investor Relations
• Rob Katz, CEO
• Angela Korch, CFO

Analysts

• Stephen Grambling, Analyst at Morgan Stanley
• Shaun Kelley, Analyst at Bank of America
• Arpine Kocharyan, Analyst at UBS
• Zane Young, Analyst at Stifel
• Ben Chaiken, Analyst at Mizuho
• Lizzie Dove, Analyst at Goldman Sachs
• Xian Siew, Analyst at BNP Paribas
• Anthony Bonadio, Analyst at Wells Fargo
• Anthony Berney, Analyst at Jefferies
• Chris Woronka, Analyst at Deutsche Bank
• Brandt Montour, Analyst at Barclays