Lake County’s Ski Cooper sees traffic, revenue soar with $45 ticket
When Dan Torsell landed as the boss at Lake County-owned Ski Cooper in 2012, he launched the “Two-fer Tuesday” and “$30 Thursday” programs that worked well at the ski areas he ran in Vermont as strategies to get more skiers on the hill during the week.
This winter, he tinkered with the midweek discounts, hoping to spread out the traffic. The slashing of Monday-Thursday lift ticket prices by half — to $45 for adults and $35 for kids — has boosted visitation to the 480-acre ski area by nearly 40% for Mondays through Wednesdays compared with last season. And lift ticket revenue is up more than 50% for the same days at the community-owned nonprofit ski area that grossed $6.5 million in revenue last year, $4.4 million of that from selling lift tickets.
“We are honestly just trying to give people the opportunity — or the freedom — to ski for a reasonable price,” Torsell said. “It’s kinda been a fun experiment to try.”
You can buy the $45 day ticket online or walk to the window and it’s the same price. That’s a distinct turn from the resort industry trend of punishing skiers who don’t buy months in advance. Day lift tickets at the big resorts topped $300 this season as part of a concerted effort to drive skiers into advance-purchase passes and lift tickets.
A $45 lift ticket is good for the industry, Torsell says.
“Say I’m a never-ever,” he says. “First of all, I don’t know my way around the resort world and where to find the deals and discounts. All I want to do is give this thing a try. All I hear is that season passes are such a great deal. But does a newbie really want to lay out $500, $600, $800 just to find out they don’t like it?”
Since debuting the $45 midweek ticket, the rental shop at Ski Cooper has seen early midweek revenue climb 73%. Revenue from ski lessons is up 80%. Folks are skiing more days and sticking around for a $45 Monday ski day after spending $100 a day on the weekend.
“This is something the big guys will never do. You can’t walk up to a ticket window and get a great deal,” Torsell says.
The big resorts are playing the season pass game. Torsell likens that to buying a printer. The machine may be cheap, but those ink cartridges cost a lot. The big resorts keep the money flowing with $50 parking, $7 coffees and $30 burgers.
“People come up here all the time and pull up a few steps to the lodge and ask where they pay for parking. They just stare when we tell them parking is free,” Torsell says.
When the Ski Cooper team looked at their customer base, they shifted the ticket pricing model over to their food, too. They found individual pizzas for $5, half of what they cost at the cafeteria last winter. They dropped the cost of chicken fingers and their hand-cut french fries. Gross revenue through the middle of February is up nearly 30%.
“Lots of people are taking lessons and renting and spending in the retail shop because the lift ticket price is low,” Torsell says.
The yield per skier, as expected, is down, but that’s offset by larger numbers of Ski Cooper skiers.
“We are playing a volume game,” Torsell says. “And it’s working.”