Many people are familiar with the Vail Ski Resort, a beautiful skiing destination in Colorado. What many might not know is this is just one of 42 ski resorts across four countries that the publicly traded company controls. The company started out as just one mountain but through acquisitions and leasing agreements starting in 1997, they now own and operate some of America's greatest ski destinations like Vail, Park City, and Crested Butte. The company has gone international now owning Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia Canada, Falls Creek Australia, and the most recent in 2023, Crans-Montana Mountain Resort in Switzerland.
It has been joked about that Vail at this point might as well buy the rights to North American Snowfall, this might reflect some recent money-saving habits that Vail Resorts implied. At the beginning of the year Ski Patrol workers went on strike to advocate for a raise in wages from $21 to $23 an hour. These Ski patrollers are the only people on the mountain responsible for rescuing skiers and keeping the hill safe. The strike left vast parts of the resort closed leading to chair lift lines winding throughout the property for hours. The $2 strike lasted for 13 days before Vail decided to pay their ski patrollers and open the mountain back up to full capacity.
This is not the only instance of employees outraged at working conditions. Lift Mechanics at Crested Butte also went on strike for a living wage. Workers at Breckenridge, another world-famous resort owned by Vail, protested against their unfair company living conditions. This string of employee outrage has had a devastating effect on the stock price of Vail Resorts from a high of $372.51 in November 2021 to $173.54 as of January 27th, 2025. Late Apex Partners, a fund that owns shares of Vail, called for the removal of CEO Kirsten Lynch, Chief Financial Officer Angela Korch, and Executive Chairman Rob Katz. The fund also called for dividends to be cut by 80%. The public outrage over these disputes was massive as the Ski industry continues to become more and more expensive while conglomerate resorts like Vail continue to rake in huge amounts of profits while not paying their employees a fair wage.
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