Vail Resorts reported fiscal 2026 net income attributable to the company of $147.5 million, down from $280 million, as historically weak snowfall across the western U.S. weighed on visitation and resort performance.
Resort Reported EBITDA declined to $745.7 million from $844.1 million, including $11 million of one-time costs associated with the company’s resource efficiency transformation plan.
Full-year Resort net revenue declined by $131.9 million, or 4.5%, primarily because of difficult weather conditions across the Rockies and Tahoe.
Total lift revenue declined 3.5% even as visitation fell 13.4%, supported by a 3.9% increase in pass revenue.
Resort Reported EBITDA declined $98.5 million, or 11.7%, with weather-related pressure partially offset by cost controls.
The company realized $45 million of savings through its resource efficiency transformation initiative, along with a $16.7 million benefit from performance-based management incentives that were not earned and a $6.2 million favorable foreign exchange impact.
Those benefits were partly offset by $20 million of incremental marketing investment.
Vail Resorts also reported weaker advance pass sales for the upcoming North American ski season.
Through September 18, pass units were down approximately 12%, estimated days sold were down 10%, and sales dollars were down approximately 6% from the comparable prior-year period.
Management said weakness remains concentrated in Destination frequency products, particularly lower-frequency passes, while unlimited products have shown relatively stronger trends.
The company believes some of the decline could reflect delayed buying rather than permanently lost demand and plans to continue marketing season passes and lift tickets through the remainder of the selling cycle.
For fiscal 2027, Vail Resorts expects net income attributable to the company of $158 million to $233 million and Resort Reported EBITDA of $805 million to $865 million.
The EBITDA outlook includes approximately $14 million of one-time costs.
Management expects recovery from fiscal 2026’s weather pressures, higher lift-ticket visitation, pricing increases, greater ancillary spending, and approximately $25 million in incremental savings from its efficiency initiative.
Those improvements are expected to be partly offset by weaker pass demand, inflation, normalized expenses, and additional investments in long-term growth.
At the midpoint, the outlook implies a 26.9% Resort EBITDA margin, or approximately 27.3% excluding the one-time costs.
Vail Resorts ended July with approximately $3.19 billion of total debt, $231.3 million in cash, and $37.1 million in short-term certificates of deposit, resulting in net debt of approximately $2.92 billion and a 3.9x ratio of net debt to Total Reported EBITDA.
The board also declared a $2.22 per-share quarterly dividend, payable October 27 to shareholders of record on October 8.
KEY QUOTES:
“This past winter was one of the most challenging winters in history across the western U.S. for the ski industry, which negatively impacted financial performance for the year. Conditions were particularly severe in the Rockies, where snowfall and snowpack were at or near historic lows and significantly below prior record-low seasons, resulting in the most difficult weather environment we have ever experienced. With that backdrop, this past year demonstrated the resilience of our business model and encouraging signs for the future. Our advanced commitment model and cost discipline provided considerable stability, and our investments in talent, technology and our resorts drove record guest satisfaction scores and strong employee engagement, which are critical measures of our success.
Looking back over the past year and a half, we have taken decisive action and accelerated the pace of change across our business, strengthening leadership, advancing growth initiatives, enhancing the guest experience, and improving operational efficiency. In addition to appointing a new CEO, we have brought on a new Chief Revenue Officer and a new independent board member with hospitality and operations expertise, with an ongoing search for a second director. We refreshed our marketing approach and increased our investment across media, channel strategies, branding and optimization of our products and pricing. We also announced our multi-year Epic Experience growth strategy to further differentiate the guest experience to drive increased guest engagement and loyalty, and the expansion of our resource efficiency transformation plan to deliver an additional $30 million of savings by fiscal 2028.”
Rob Katz, Chief Executive Officer Of Vail Resorts
