Vail Resorts, Inc. (NYSE:MTN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Chris Woronka: Okay. Very helpful. And then I guess as a follow-up, I know you mentioned Northeast, you called that out. It’s one of the areas that had strong growth in the season pass sales in the spring selling season, despite challenges. I mean, I know you don’t get into specific numbers, but would you say it was even better than you would have expected from that region given the challenges or just, kind of in-line? And do you think there’s still more gains to be had from that region on advanced pass sales?

Kirsten Lynch: It’s always a concern when we have some resorts that are in geographies where there’s extreme weather disruptions. And there’s always a concern about what impact is that going to have on our pass holders and their desire to hold a pass. And so, we watch it very closely. And I would say, I’m very pleased, and there’s a – if you break down what we call the East resorts into Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and the Northeast, we collectively call that our East region resorts. We had growth in the Midwest and the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. And I think that’s very encouraging, and it shows the loyalty of our pass holders and the value of the pass that even after a tough season, they still believe that they will get the usage and the value out of their pass, whether that’s being locally or taking a destination trip or maybe even both.

Do I still think there’s growth potential? Absolutely I do. And I’ve talked about this at the investor conference. We believe that East region, it has a lot of growth potential for us still. We have very strong resorts that we own and operate in that region. We have a lot of guest data from guest that ski and snowboard in that data. We have incredibly strong brand awareness of Epic Pass. And every year, we have been growing our penetration in that particular region, and I have full confidence that we will continue to do that this year.

Chris Woronka: Okay, thanks. Very helpful.

Kirsten Lynch: Thank you, Chris.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from Brandt Montour of Barclays.

Brandt Montour: Hey, good everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. Just starting on the labor side, you mentioned that you’re expanding the workforce management program. I imagine that wages, you still probably expect some growth looking into next year. I know you haven’t said that, not putting words in your mouth, but just broader hospitality, let’s say, is still seeing wage inflation. And so, I guess my question is, when you think about offsets within that segment for you, is there a world in which last year you may have over hired a little bit on labor to make sure that you could rebuild that customer experience? And looking back on the last season, do you think maybe that there’s – you don’t need quite as many people or sort of what’s the take on looking back on last season after it’s all done now?

Kirsten Lynch: Thanks, Brandt. I would say, overall, I’m very pleased that we got to staffing levels that enabled us to have full operation of our terrain, our lifts, and normal operation of our ancillary. It obviously makes a significant impact in the guest experience and our guest satisfaction, which ultimately impacts our pass sales and our loyalty to our resorts. I think in terms of what our plans are next year, we – our Mountain operations teams always assess what staffing levels they believe that they need. We are always looking at what is the optimal staffing and the most efficient staffing we can have. And then we have tools like what I just spoke about, workforce management that can help our managers allocate labor and understand what labor and hours they need.