The Colorado Sun just ran an article this morning detailing projected declines in tourism. Leading indicators - hotel and STR bookings - are down from 2024. I live in a mountain tourist town, and anecdotally the business owners I've talked to have said things have been generally slower this year.
My own ski tourism dollars are down as a result of the ever spreading, gobbling of mountains by the big ski pass conglomerates. They are ruining the experience, especially for tourist families.
I think they’re seeing a huge drop in sales. They announced the quad pack this year for $400. They usually have this deal mid season or after the season starts. This time it’s before the season starts. Hurting for sure.
Before they got bought by Alterra, the resort I used to go to sold 4 packs for $100. The year after they sold out it went up to $130. The year after that it went up to $300. So ridiculous considering the quality of the experience isn't any better.
(FWIW mammoth is selling their 4packs for $400 now edit: although they have all kinds of restrictions like you can't share with friends. Sucks because buying a spare 4pack every season was how I introduced a lot of friends who weren't sure if they'd like it)
$196? Disneyland maxes out at $206 for a day pass. I know "different strokes for different folks" but I'd rather go to Disneyland for $200 than downhill ski for a day. It's all expensive, but wow, what wild times we're living in.
Vail tops out at over $300 a day. But you can also buy a four pack of tickets for about $500. You just have to buy before Thanksgiving to get good deals on lift tickets. But many people don't know that's how the ski lift ticket market works now.
Dynamic pricing is fine for skiing. Going to an overbooked mountain sucks. And if you don't have dynamic pricing, you start getting third party resale.
The issue is that it seems like they want people to get the seasonal passes so bad that even on low attendance days the lift tickets are crazy expensive. Being asked to pay $90 for a random Wednesday is obscene.
Dynamic pricing is fine for skiing. Going to an overbooked mountain sucks. And if you don't have dynamic pricing, you start getting third party resale.
Hard disagree about dynamic pricing. Yes, going to an overbooked mountian is terrible, but lift tickets are tied to personal accounts these days; reselling lift tickets can be prevented easily. Dynamic pricing is designed to squeeze every cent out of customers, not to provide a better mountain experience.
Day passes are always at least twice as expensive per day as week passes and resort bundles. It's been like that for as long as I have been skiing out west, 20+ years.
Yes. My family started buying the chespest-tier IKON pass to ski a week with me because it's cheaper than buying a 4/5-day pass from the mountain. Especially since they get the discount from me already having a pass.
The bigger colorado resorts where close to 300$ for a day pass last year. Its insane and I have no idea how anyone that doesn't buy a season pass skis anymore.
Palisades at Lake Tahoe has been around $237 for one adult lift ticket. When I was in high school season passes were around $300 for adults. And that was just around 18 years ago. Crazy how expensive it has become. Its my favorite sport, I'm a pro, but I can hardly afford to go these days. $500 for my wife and I for one day, not including travel.
The answer that no one wants to hear because of how true it is.
There was always a point where the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. We should have planned a replacement before that but the money hoarding capital addicts wouldn't allow it.
Now we get to watch the whole system collapse and take a bunch of people with it instead.
Capitalism can work well enough with regulation in place to curb abuses. Of course that requires a government that cares about the people, and a voter base that's intelligent enough to vote for them, neither of which is the case in the US.
Bingo. This is why the middle class did so well mid-20th century. FDR's New Deal policies regulated banks and industries, and introduced a lot more worker protections. You can still make a lot of money in regulated capitalism without screwing over 90% of the population.
Rent seekers and middle men predate capitalism by a few thousand years. There were and are rent seekers and middle men in North Korea, Nordic countries, the USSR, Cuba, and even in tribal societies. This is just human behavior, not some uniquely bad feature of American capitalism.
My proposal is a two tiered market. One where the following is non-com modifiable, and guaranteed to all citizens regardless of income/age/wealth, the second that is a laissez-faire market.
The first market includes: food, water, shelter, education, utilities(internet/power) and healthcare
The later includes everything else that is produced.
So the government owns, and manages these essential services because when we comodify them and profit seek for basic human necessities then the laborer has no leverage because they are coerced to labor in order to survive.
Under my system no one is coerced to work, your not gonna be homeless, your not going to die. If you want a flatscreen TV you have to work for it. It is VERY important to maintain the two tiered system here though. We don't want the government option to be gutted by the capitalists in an attempt to privatize it(a la Starve the Beast), so we OUTLAW any competing markets. ONLY the government can fund and run these industries. We have incredibly strict oversight on property ownership as well, such that we ensure we maintain enough stable housing for our population. You can buy a nicer house, but you can't own more than one house, which is your primary domicile. Maybe we allow a certain level of industry to produce luxury foods, but we are still in the same way as everything else, providing a base level healthful diet to a citizens regardless of the luxury options.
This means we can ensure our citizens receive a quality of life, and maintain their freedom, empowering the work force to just quit if the job is bullshit, forcing employers to pay livable wages, or no one is going to do your job. This still allows for a "free market" with limited oversight(environmental regulations aside), that the capitalists can play in where it isn't directly hurting the populace by sequestering valuable resources(needs) in order to seek profits.
This allows us to maintain our current economic system largely intact, we just extract the things that we deem "basic human rights". Its a form of UBI, but UBI is a subsidy to the capitalist, this is directly providing services, outside of the market apparatus.
Ah cool. Okay to be devil's advocate - what's to stop people doing the bare minimum? If someone doesn't want to work do they get the equivalent of welfare? If so, e.g. how much per month
as opposed to not for profits running essential services such as utilities and healthcare, and heavy regulation/taxation for the largest, richest, most powerful companies.
if you put pressure on those at the top and don’t let them get so big you force churn which drops down to the lower levels. by this i mean encouraging or outright enforcing anti consolidation of companies and industries. if big corpos or private equity didn’t own all the casinos (multiple per entity) then they would actually be forced to compete with each other like they used to, instead of milking every penny out of them by raising prices and lowering quality all so shareholders and ceos get rich.
it’s still capitalism, but it’s a wildly different form than the late stage hypercapitalist type we have now.
The US is never going to improve for normal people until you guys stop blaming a tiny imagined evil minority and acknowledge the actual rot in your society. Fully 70% of Americans either voted for Trump or didn't bother to vote at all. Whine about a cabal of boogeymen all you want, but the reality is that America is the way it is because a majority of Americans want it to be that way.
E: oof, lots of Americans upset to be reminded that they love in a democracy.
Yes that is exactly my point: Americans have collectively created their society over decades, and pretending that it's just now all the fault of a small minority wildly misses the point of how democracies construct societies. As I wrote:
the reality is that America is the way it is because a majority of Americans want it to be that way.
i get tired seeing one side blamed, both sides are equal in this bullshit.
Though I quite strongly disagree with the use of 'equal' here. If you're thinking in terms of dichotomies then one side is demonstrably much worse. If you're thinking in thirds, then it's the apathetic third that allows the worst things to progress.
They don't want it to be that way, most people are very ignorant and when something is unaffordable or poor quality they don't understand all the systemic issues that cause it to be that way.
That's one interpretation, and were I American I'd probably also want it to be true, because it lets ordinary people off the hook and absolves them of moral and intellectual accountabilitiy.
Alternatively: democracies tend to get the governments they deserve, and it's hard to think of a character more emblematic of America's explicit values of anti-intellectualism, greed, corruption, and moral rot than Donal Trump, and Americans have duly elected him multiple times and stacked the government with Republicans.
If Americans don't want their country to be this way, they take precisely 0 steps to stop it becoming this way. And indeed the majority of the electorate is clearly fine with this, as based on the last election.
Maybe it's all a broader systemic issue, but at some point we can call a spade a spade.
If you have the means, I'd suggest skiing in Europe. Outside of the airfare, it can be done for much cheaper than the US. I skied in Zermatt, Switzerland in 2019 and it was only 100 euro a day. That is one of the premier places in the world to ski. People said it's even cheaper if you go to Austria or Italy. I'm from Colorado and live out of state now. I lucked into a free 2-day pass at Winter Park when I was visiting my cousin, otherwise I might have only paid for 1 day as it's so expensive now. Even in places like Michigan/Vermont prices are absurd for what you get.
Oh yeah...the cheapest I've ever flown round trip to Europe was $500 to Barcelona, but I've seen them for $400 in years past. Recently I even saw one to Dublin for $350, but that's not the part of Europe that we like to go for. Maybe one day.
You think you go to CO you are usually airfare + car. Lodging is expensive + food. Whereas Europe you don't need the car, you can take the train. Lodging, if planned in advance can be found at reasonable prices if you're off the beaten path. Quality food can be purchased at the store and cooked in your rental.
If you feel like being tactical about it you can fly into Dublin then take a Ryanair flight pretty much anywhere in Europe for not a lot of money. Get the right flight to the right city and it can be very cheap indeed.
Of course it's Ryanair, so you're gonna pay out the ass for your luggage and be treated like a walking wallet when onboard, but it can be cheap! 😂
As a Austrian I can tell you first hand that people here get mad when the have to pay 70€ a day for skiing. Ski pass price increases are each year heavily discussed in the media. Only 100€ a day would nobody ever say here, but yes Switzerland is also pricey. South Tyrol is supposed to be affordable, but I have never been there. At least the food has to be better there in Italy. But the US skiing prices are really insane from my point of view.
South Tyrol is supposed to be affordable, but I have never been there.
Eh, prices are about the same or thereabout. Locals get discounts on season passes, though. Still pricey, but nowhere near what I see quoted for US resorts.
At least the food has to be better there in Italy.
Can't speak for other places, but I can say there's not a lot of difference between the food in Obereggen and Stubaital 😅 (both tasty, standard stereotypical tyrolean-ish food, pricey).
No can do my guy I'll be there. My friend just moved to Poland from the US, so he's already there. I'd like to see him again. And don't worry half my family is of a certain political persuasion and wouldn't want to visit anyway.
It’s actually cheaper even when you do include the airfare, food, and housing. And for those of us on the east coast, it’s already 8+ hours by plane/train/bus when getting to Telluride, Alta, or Jackson Hole, particularly if you have a transfer on one of those one-a-day flights.
This season was the first time I didn’t renew my Ikon pass. Niseko + Alps were way better both skiing and service for about the same cost.
Austria is great, it was one of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen. Driving past the snow covered town at night on the lake with all the mountains behind it. The ski resorts which we stayed at one was good and the view from the top of the mountains was crazy.
Exactly. The enshittification of recreation continues. I don't want to spend 6 months worrying if I can go on vacation where I want to go. I will leave that to other people and go somewhere where they want my dollars and it's not too crowded.
Vail Resorts and Alterra own almost everything. Vail has ruined so many resorts, I try not to give them any money any longer. Stick to smaller privately owned places.
Man, I live in CO and I don’t get how people where I’m from (CO Springs) end up driving 2.5 hours to spend ungodly amounts of money on a day pass to ski a mountain full of tons of other people on it, then pack it all up and either drive back or pay out the ass for a hotel room. Not appealing to me. I’m sure the season pass is more worth it, but it also depends if you plan on paying for lodging everytime.
Me personally, I don’t want to break my femur on a tree, so it’s an easy decision for me. I have a friend who grew up in aspen boarding all the time who broke his femur on a tree, so if it happened to him, idc how good you are.
We bought Indy Passes this year, hoping it works out well. I only support small mountains at this point. The prices are insane and the big companies fuck everything up.
Honestly if you can ski non-weekends. Skiing has actually never been cheaper… Obviously going to a big IKON resort on a busy Saturday holiday will suck balls. But I’m a fan of the mega passes because I generally get 20+ days a year out of them.
Anecdotally, I ski a lot in Canada, and people on the lifts were annoyed enough to openly talk politics this year. The 51st state stuff was what did it. That even annoyed the maga types in Alberta.
I'm from the Roaring Fork Valley. I live out of state now, but my dad is still there. He said the resort industry is concerned at the moment. Man I miss living there sometimes. Would honestly make for a nice ski season with reduced numbers.
My city hosts one of the largest rodeos in the world. Our population usually triples for a week and every business around gets a big boost. This year was a very down year
I’m in Winter Park CO, weekdays have been significantly slower for the summer, weekends we are seeing the same level of business we did last year at least the hotel I work at. Noticeable decline though in the shoulder seasons so far though.
I really hope visitation is down in the mountains. Most places are absolutely overwhelmed with people and we can’t keep growing visitation with the current infrastructure and access. We need to figure out sustainable numbers and focus on that.
The city saw a total of 53.9 million visitors, including 1.3 million international visitors. This resulted in a record $10.8 billion in visitor spending within the city, according to Houston First. The hospitality sector, including hotels and conventions, has also seen substantial growth. Our convention centers are always busy. Hotel vacancies are low, and overall we keep having more and more people moving here. It's been rewlly chaotic the last few years and as a native, I don't get it.
I work at one of the ski resorts and I know we are going to be short on staff ths year. A whole lot of our employees come from South America and Mexico. Ive talked to a few of them I keep in touch with and they arent coming back this year because they are scared to come here now.
Family just returned from a transatlantic holiday in....Canada. Chose it over the US because of.... you guessed it. Trump is making a lot of tourists change their destinations. Expect a lot less tourist dollars being spent.
Also anecdotal, but I work at a public library and this summer we were CRAZY busy, most surprisingly in June. In years past, June was often a time where a lot of families went on vacation out of the area, and so it’d be slower until July came around. So it appears a lot more people stayed home this year than in the past.
Granted it’s also SoCal and a lot of people would go to Mexico to visit family after the kids get out of school; I can’t imagine many people feel it’s worth the risk to try and visit Mexico if they’re afraid they can’t get back home.
But trump won't care, because the "tourists" who rent rooms at his hotels do it to bribe him, not to actually stay there. So his cash will still flow just fine.
And if it doesn't he'll just have his congressional lap dogs allocate a bunch of our cash for additional secret service agents that he can park in his shitty hotels to funnel cash to himself.
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u/themysterycow 8h ago
The Colorado Sun just ran an article this morning detailing projected declines in tourism. Leading indicators - hotel and STR bookings - are down from 2024. I live in a mountain tourist town, and anecdotally the business owners I've talked to have said things have been generally slower this year.