Vail Resorts, Inc. (NYSE:MTN) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Jackson Gibb: Hi, there. This is Jackson Gibb on for Jeff. Yes. So I wanted to talk about the dividend raise. To us it looks like it’s a quarter early and a little bit smaller than it has been historically. Are you planning to raise the dividend again on the third quarter and if not, is there any reason why this raise was a little bit below historical averages?

Angela Korch: Yes. This is normally when we would evaluate the quarterly dividend. And so it is actually consistent with when we had historically done it. We had suspended the dividend during COVID and when we reinstated it, it came in at a partial level. And then the level that we’ve been at the $1.91 per share was an 8% increase from where we were prior to COVID. And so it is consistent with actually what we have done.

Jackson Gibb: Okay, understood. Thank you. And then, if I could one more. On the Epic Pass, early bird pricing looks like about an 8% increase like you mentioned in the prepared remarks. It’s a bit more than last years increase and ahead of your pre-COVID pricing pattern season. Should we think of this as a passing through of higher inflation? And if so, should we expect similar patterns and window ticket pricing? Just wanted to get some color on how your balancing price elasticity was trying to drive more advanced commitment conversion into next season?

Kirsten Lynch: Yes. We are always looking at the market dynamics, guest behavior dynamics also factoring in the investments we make into the guest experience and what our business objectives are that we’re trying to achieve in our pricing decisions. We do have, as you know, a lot of data about our guests, their behavior and price elasticity. When you look back historically for the pass business years and years back, we have historically always priced slightly ahead of inflation and that is what you see us doing this year as well. And I would say we look at it every single month and we are constantly assessing what are €“ what is the right price and what is the right actions to take. But this 8% price increase I would view is pretty consistent with how we have historically priced our passes. If you exclude sort of the COVID time periods where there were a lot of unusual actions being taken, but historically it’s pretty consistent with how we’ve approached it.

Operator: This concludes the Q&A portion of today’s call. I’d now like to turn the call back over to Kirsten Lynch for closing remarks.

Kirsten Lynch: Thank you, operator. This concludes our fiscal 2023 second quarter earnings call. Thanks to everyone who joined today. Please feel free to contact me or Angela directly should you have any further questions. Thank you for your time this afternoon. Goodbye.

Operator: This concludes today’s Vail Resorts fiscal second quarter 2023 earnings call and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time, and have a wonderful day.