Again I am hammering the ski resort economic model.

Here is the question why aren't 2 day lift tickets cheaper? It seems most places only offer a slight 5-10 dollar discount on a second day. Hardly worth coming back for.

But if the discount was better or if it was like an amusement park where you could purchase you next days ticket before leaving at a hefty discount. Would more folks ski longer?

oldensign,

I am so with you on this one. At Snowshoe MLK weekend, a two day ticket was $2 cheaper ($1 per day) than a single ticket. Absolutely no incentive to purchase other than having to go to the ticket window twice. I'm also disappointed at WISP. We have skied there several President's day weekends. Last year, a two day ticket was $105 (I think), this year $124. How much for a single day? $62.

On Sunday at the Shoe, it was -4 degrees at about 10:00 AM and there was noticeably many less people on the slopes than on Saturday. I wonder how many had tickets and decided not to ski and how many waited to purchase since it was only $2 off.

Steve

I can't speak for Snowshoe, but I do work for Snowtime (Liberty, RoundTop and Whitetail) and get a little inside info every now and then. Snowtime's Advantage card offers a 40% discount + a free ticket every 6 trips. The philosophy is that that is the product they offer to attract frequent skiers who will choose where to go partly on the deal available. If you want a big discount, you need to commit to more than 2-3 days.

Whitetail only made multi day tickets available after on resort lodging had been available for a few years. At the time, the driving factor was convenience. There was no thinking that multi day tickets had any chance of increasing visits, regardless of how it was priced.

Still, ski resort economics are a bit screwy. Try playing Ski Resort Tycoon (a computer simulation game) sometime. Maybe version 2 has multi day tickets? It's amazing how that game can make you run a resort stupidly. On one go around, I put a bathroom right inside the front entrance because there were so many complaints about not being able to find a bathroom. After every bathroom complaint I built a new one. Still the complaints kept coming and that iteration went bust. Try lowering the food prices and see what happens.