管理層發言
Thank you for your continued patience. Your meeting will begin shortly. If you need assistance at any time, please press 0, and a member of our team will be happy to help you. Good afternoon, and welcome to the Vail Resorts Fiscal Third Quarter 26 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. Following management's prepared remarks, the call will be open for your questions. If you need to remove yourself from the queue, press 2. To get as many questions as time permits, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. At any time, if you should need operator assistance, please press 0. I will now turn the call over to Connie Wang, Vice President, Investor Relations at Vail Resorts. You may begin.
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Vail Resorts fiscal 26 third quarter earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today are Robert A. Katz, our Chief Executive Officer, and Angela Korch, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, let me remind you that some information provided during this call may include forward-looking statements that are based on certain assumptions and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties as described in our SEC filings, and actual future results may vary materially. Forward-looking statements in our press release issued this afternoon along with our remarks on this call are made as of today, 06/08/2026, and we undertake no duty to update them as actual events unfold. Today's remarks also include certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures are provided in the tables included with our press release, which along with our quarterly report on Form 10-Q were filed this afternoon with the SEC and are also available on the Investor Relations section of our website at www.vailresorts.com. I would now like to turn the call over to Robert for opening remarks.
Thanks, Connie. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our third quarter earnings call. Before getting into the details around the quarter, I want to take a minute to step back and discuss our progress against the focus areas I laid out last year. This call a year ago was my first opportunity to speak with all of you after stepping back into the CEO role. At that time, I outlined the foundational advantages that differentiate our company, including our owned and operated network, advanced commitment model, and deep guest relationships, and our commitment to leveraging those strengths to deepen guest engagement and loyalty and drive stronger revenue growth. Now a year later and despite a very challenging ski season, those priorities remain unchanged, and we are encouraged by the progress we have made in evolving our marketing approach and enhancing our lift ticket strategies.
As I think it is well understood, our results this past year were significantly impacted by weather challenges across the Western United States. The historically adverse weather conditions we discussed last quarter continued through March and April, which drove meaningful pressure on visitation and revenue in the quarter, particularly at our destination resorts in the Rockies, which experienced the worst season on record for snowfall. To give context on the magnitude of the impact of conditions on visitation this past season, industry-wide visitation in the Rockies declined approximately 24%. When you look back over 40 years, the prior worst decline in visitation outside of COVID-related closures for the Rockies was down 8% in 2012, which illustrates the unprecedented severity of the conditions and the anomaly we just experienced. Against that backdrop, our advanced commitment strategy and geographic diversity, along with our Resource Efficiency Transformation plan and ability to use our integrated systems to remain agile on expenses, were pivotal in mitigating the impact from weather this past year.
At the midpoint of our updated guidance range, resort EBITDA will decline 14% from our original fiscal year 26 guidance issued back in September 2025, which is in line with the fiscal year 2012 missed-to-guidance, despite snowfall in the Rockies being down approximately 30% from the previous low in 2012. Year over year, the midpoint of resort EBITDA guidance implies a 12% decline. Nothing to cheer about, but something to be proud of given the visitation decline in a historically high fixed cost business. Importantly, the challenging conditions did not shift our focus from delivering a high-quality guest experience, as we achieved record guest experience scores, including year-over-year increases at every resort in the Rockies where we were most impacted by weather. For the third season in a row, we had full staffing in our resorts, a strong return rate for our seasonal employees, high employee engagement scores, efficient utilization of our labor hours due to workforce planning, and much better selectivity in our recruiting efforts as our need to hire new people continues to decline.
We also saw a market decline in employee injuries per labor hour, typically another good indicator of improving culture. Overall, we are very pleased with our operational execution within the areas we could control. We are also encouraged by the positive proof points we are seeing across the key strategies we outlined heading into the season: evolving our marketing approach, focusing on driving lift ticket visitation, and optimizing our pass product portfolio. I would like to provide an update on each of these. First, evolving our marketing approach. This involved increasing our focus on targeted paid media investments and adjusting channel strategies to better reach and engage with guests. Heading into the season, we saw positive results with a shift in approach as we were able to improve the pass sales trend by 5 percentage points in the post-Labor Day selling period relative to the earlier selling period, which provided greater stability going into the season.
Additionally, with increased marketing investment and a clearer focus on our resorts, we saw increases in unaided brand awareness from destination guests for our top resorts. Second, we made changes heading into the season to focus on driving lift ticket visitation, which delivered early positive results. We expanded our pass holder benefit program with Epic Friend tickets at a 50% discount and saw visitation from benefit tickets increase 10% despite a decline in overall lift ticket visitation of 10%. In addition, we introduced super-advanced lift tickets offered at a 30% discount for purchases made a month in advance, which drove a 65% increase in tickets sold more than 28 days out, and we did not see evidence of material cannibalization of other advanced ticket products. Combined with our shift in marketing approach, these strategies drove meaningful outperformance relative to the U.S. industry in lift ticket visitation this past season.
Based on preliminary data, our U.S. lift tickets declined 12% while the rest of the industry lift ticket visitation was down approximately 20%. In the Rockies, our outperformance was even stronger. There is no doubt a portion of our outperformance was due to the destination nature of many of our resorts, which may do better than local resorts in a tough weather year. But even in the Northeast, which saw excellent conditions, we saw an increase in our lift ticket visits of 8% versus the rest of the industry down an estimated 8% in the Northeast. Finally, moving on to next season's pass sales, spring pass sales were down 10%, and sales dollars including tax were down 5%, which reflects softer demand following one of the worst ski seasons in history. While our overall pass sales decelerated in May from our April deadline, part of that was the timing of military sales, a portion of which got pulled forward into April due to us offering pass benefit tickets to military pass holders for the first time, and part was due to the timing of auto-renew charges.
Excluding auto-renew and military, unit declines are very stable between the two selling periods. While we are clearly not satisfied with any decline in pass sales, the outcome is not necessarily surprising given the severity of the conditions we just experienced this past season and the massive growth we saw in pass sales in the previous five years, especially in our frequency products, which saw the biggest decline this past spring. Encouragingly, third-party data suggests that our spring pass performance meaningfully outpaced the broader industry, which we would attribute to all the new strategies we put in place for this year. Angela will cover additional details on the spring pass results. We do believe, based on our own results and the broader market data, that a portion of the decline is likely due to delayed purchase decisions rather than reduced overall intent to ski next season, creating an opportunity for improved pass performance in the fall selling season and/or ultimately through in-season lift ticket purchases next year.
Looking back over the past several decades, U.S. ski market data indicates that visitation typically fully recovers following a season with poor conditions if the subsequent season has normal conditions, and we believe we are well positioned to capture that visitation recovery with the pass and lift ticket product and marketing strategies we have developed. That said, unprecedented as this past season was, it is hard to know with certainty how any of this will play out. Looking ahead, we see a unique opportunity to drive a step-change improvement in the overall guest experience across our resorts through continued investments in lifts, snowmaking, terrain, and talent while leveraging the scale and strength of our integrated network to implement new technologies and processes to enhance key elements of the guest experience. We are uniquely positioned to differentiate the guest experience as we have intentionally built a fully integrated, owned-and-operated network of world-class destination and regional resorts connected through our pass and marketing ecosystem and supported by a unified data and technology platform.
We have key initiatives underway in our gear, ski school, and dining businesses as well as every facet of guest engagement and communication, and we will share updates on these efforts in the upcoming months and throughout the year. Together, these initiatives will play an important role in driving future visitation growth and long-term value creation. With that, I will turn it over to Angela to walk through the quarter in more detail.
Thanks, Rob. I will briefly cover the results from the quarter, our updated fiscal 26 guidance, and spring pass sale results. Starting with the third quarter results, weather conditions remained extremely unfavorable in the quarter, which put continued pressure on visitation and revenue across the business. Resort revenue for the quarter declined 7% compared to the prior year, primarily driven by unfavorable weather conditions that impacted visitation and revenue for both local and destination guests, particularly at our resorts in the Rockies and in Tahoe. Lift revenue declined 5% despite visitation being down 15%, primarily as a result of North American pass sales increasing 3% heading into the season. Resort EBITDA for the quarter was down 9%, as our advanced commitment model, cost discipline, and the geographic diversity of our portfolio partially mitigated the larger conditions headwinds.
To expand on the magnitude of the conditions impact, even our most committed pass visitation in North America declined 17% over the winter, while lift ticket visitation declined 10%. The impact was particularly severe in the Rockies where snowfall for the winter finished down 55% below the 30-year average. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, we expect stable demand across our North American lodging and mountain resort businesses during the summer season, and we are encouraged by early momentum in Australia where EPIC Australia pass units are up approximately 26% and unit dollars are up approximately 31%. Turning to full-year guidance, we are updating our full year outlook with the resort EBITDA midpoint now at the bottom of the range we provided in March, consistent with our April update. We now expect net income attributable to Vail Resorts in the range of $128 million to $162 million and resort reported EBITDA in the range of $735 million to $755 million.
This change reflects the continuation of historically challenging conditions through March and April, which further pressured visitation late in the season. With the reduction in earnings, we now expect our cash taxes to be in the range of $75 million to $85 million. We remain on track to exceed our initial two-year Resource Efficiency Transformation Plan of $100 million as we expect to achieve $106 million of annualized efficiencies by the end of this year. We also remain on track to deliver an additional $30 million of savings in fiscal 28, as outlined in our March investor conference presentation. From fiscal 26, this translates to an incremental $45 million of efficiencies year over year, before $13 million of one-time costs. Our resource efficiency initiatives are providing a modest offset in a weather-impacted year and reinforce our commitment to driving structural efficiency across the business.
Turning to our balance sheet and capital allocation, despite the difficult operating environment this year, we remain confident in the strength of our cash flow generation and the stability of our business model. Our balance sheet remains strong as we ended the quarter with liquidity of approximately $1.1 billion and net leverage of 3.5x trailing 12 months EBITDA. We are also reaffirming our capital plans of approximately $215 million to $220 million in core capital spending, and $234 million to $239 million of total capital investments as we continue to invest in technology across our gear, ski school, and dining businesses to enhance the guest experience and ultimately to drive long-term growth in our business. Our capital allocation priorities remain unchanged, starting with reinvestment in the business and maintaining balance sheet flexibility to pursue potential acquisition opportunities followed by returning capital to shareholders.
We maintain the quarterly dividend at $2.22 per share, and we will remain opportunistic on buybacks as evidenced by the repurchase of approximately $45 million of shares year to date. On pass sales, as Robert noted earlier, pass units and sales dollars through the May deadline were down 10% and 5%, respectively, including the impact of tax. Pass days sold were down approximately 8% reflecting a higher mix of unlimited products sold during the period. Pass performance to date has been driven by soft demand following the challenging conditions this season, evident in the fact that the weakness has been most pronounced in our more weather-impacted destination markets, including Colorado, Utah, and Lake Tahoe, as well as among destination guests who typically travel to the Rockies, which all saw low double-digit unit declines. In contrast, we saw much stronger performance in our Eastern U.S. markets and at Whistler Blackcomb, where pass units were down low single digits.
We are seeing positive performance in our new initiatives, as the new young adult product introduced this year saw results pacing well ahead of other age groups. As I mentioned, our core high-value unlimited pass products are outperforming frequency products, all of which reinforces the strength of our value proposition. We are also seeing better relative performance from renewing pass holders and more pressure in pass sales within the new segment, as reduced visitation this past season has resulted in a smaller conversion audience, which is typically a key driver of unit growth during this period. While near-term trends likely reflect delayed decision-making following a challenging season, we remain confident in the long-term growth opportunity given our strong resort network and marketing strategies. In closing, while the season's results reflect an exceptionally challenging operating environment, we are confident in the strength of our business model and the progress we are making on our key strategies.
We remain focused on delivering a differentiated guest experience, strengthening our demand model, and executing the opportunities within our control. Over the long term, we believe these efforts position us well to drive sustainable growth and create value for our shareholders. With that, I will turn the call back over to the operator for Q&A.
分析師問答
Thank you. Again, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We will take our first question from David Katz with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good day wherever you are. I wanted to ask Angela about the comment about the young adult product pacing well ahead of other groups. Could you put some context around how well that is doing, put some relative size on that group's ability to make a difference, and provide more detail around that particular comment, please?
Sure. I will comment on it, David. We are not going to put more specificity around it yet. We will provide more color as we get to the end of the full selling period, but it is definitely meaningfully outperforming all the other age groups and has been from the beginning. The other comment I will share is that what we are seeing is a good trade-up from a lot of other products into the core Epic product, which is what we were trying to do. So we see that as a real positive as well. In the end, I do not think it is something that is going to drive our overall results for the year. It is a mitigator to some of the other declines that we are seeing.
Right. And frankly, if we were to break up the different cohorts within the pass group, could you maybe give us a bit more detail across the board on how some of those are doing and what your expectation is for those? Some up, some down?
I think what we are seeing is pretty clear. As we highlighted, one of the biggest things we are noting is that in Colorado, in Tahoe, in Utah, and in destination markets—particularly destination guests who typically visit our Rockies resorts—those are where we are seeing the biggest decline. We are seeing much more modest declines in the Northeast and in Whistler Blackcomb. That really tells us this is very much a condition impact from last year as opposed to some broader structural issue. Not surprised that following the season we just saw, the new segment of our pass sales is down a lot more than renewal. We are heartened that the renewal piece is as strong as it is. The other piece to mention is that the unlimited products, which we have been focused on since last Labor Day, are really outperforming our frequency products, and we are trying to move people from frequency up. The frequency buyer is often a newer buyer to the overall program and more sensitive and unlikely to buy as early given the conditions we just went through.
Helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We will take our next question from Shaun Kelley with Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good afternoon, Robert and Angela. Thanks for taking my question. Robert, big picture: we are getting a lot of questions that may be a little early on what the impact is of what we learned today on next year's planning. Maybe the easiest way to ask it is, based on what you know right now, do these results and what you are seeing on the pass side in particular change much in terms of how you are planning for the business—staffing for next year and how you are thinking about the broader operating expense and planning outlook at this stage?
No, it is not changing our planning. Historically, when you look back at years where the Rockies did poorly, you see visitation fully come back and in some cases surpass the year before. That can be driven by pent-up demand created during a poor season. That said, we now have pass programs and a much larger pass base than in those historical years, so it is not surprising we are seeing some delayed decision-making in the spring. We view much of this as timing between spring and fall or even between fall and the season for lift tickets. That is why it's critical we not only have great programs on the pass side but also for lift tickets. We are planning for a normal season next year with normal conditions. We are dealing with an unprecedented anomaly this past season, so we cannot be exactly sure how it will play out, but at the moment there is no change in our planning for next season.
Great. And as my follow-up, you talked about a step-function improvement on lifts and terrain and snowmaking built around the guest experience. Is there a right time to hear a little more about initiatives there that we should look forward to?
Yes. We will continue investments in things like lifts, snowmaking, terrain, and upgrades to restaurants. The step change we see is taking our network of resorts and using technology and new processes to elevate the experience at scale. This could include My Epic Year and changes to how guests experience gear, digitization of ski school, and other initiatives in food and guest communications. We will announce additional initiatives in the months ahead. The goal is to create an ecosystem that meets what guests expect today—technology and processes that make things easier and better and eliminate friction without getting in the way of the on-snow experience. We can leverage unified marketing across our network while still elevating each resort's brand.
Thank you. We will take our next question from Molly Baum with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Thanks for taking our question. One follow-up: you talked about the deferral of pass purchasing. Do you expect heightened trade-down to lower-frequency pass products if demand does materialize later in the selling season? And, historically, after a weaker weather year, what have you seen with the different pass products?
It's challenging to compare to historical years because the pass program and product mix are very different today. When the Rockies last went through a down year in the past, we saw pass growth the following year, but that was at an earlier stage in the pass maturity cycle and without frequency products like we have today. At this point, we are not seeing trade-down in our numbers. The strongest performers right now are unlimited and higher-value Epic products versus regional or frequency products. We are not seeing trade-down at the moment, but we will continue to monitor as the selling season progresses. We do not think this is people saying they are not going to ski next year; we think many are simply not willing to make that commitment today after an unprecedented season.
Got it. And one more: as you transition Epic Gear into the app, does that transition period create any notable revenue gap in 2027 as you lose subscription revenues? Anything to call out in terms of volatility we might see?
FY 2027 will be a transition year for Epic Gear as we move from a small, high-touch experience to rolling out the ability for guests to select their own gear at scale across a much broader base. From a financial perspective, we do not see an issue there. The full experience with high-touch service and broad availability will be realized in FY 2028. The benefit is reducing friction—allowing selection, delivery, and reordering without repeated in-person fittings. FY 2027 is the first step toward that broader rollout; FY 2028 is when the full experience is expected to be in market.
Thank you. We will take our next question from Arpine Kocharyan with UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. This is related to an earlier question. Assuming the current trend of down mid-single-digit dollar sales for the pass product continues, that means the lift part of the business has to come in at a double-digit range for overall to be flattish. Do you see the potential for the lift business to grow at a double-digit range based on historical patterns and programs you might have planned for driving lift visitors? Also any quick follow-up after that.
When pass revenue grew rapidly in prior years, we absolutely saw a significant decline in lift ticket visitation as people moved from lift tickets to passes. So there is fluid movement between the two products. We believe we have the opportunity to see strong growth in lift ticket visitation if the pass business comes down, depending on demand. Key levers include making product available at more accessible price points—Epic Friend tickets, super-advanced lift tickets, and targeted promotions—and continuing to be selective in where and when we are aggressive on lift ticket products. We also have the Turn In Your Ticket program that can convert lift ticket buyers into pass buyers. There is no artificial cap to how we can drive lift ticket growth; it depends on demand and how we deploy our product and marketing levers.
Thank you. And could you go over the levers you have to protect EBITDA, given mid-single-digit declines so far in pass products? What kind of underlying cost inflation are you looking at, and how do you see the shape of EBITDA recovery after an anomaly year?
First, we will enter FY 2027 with run-rate improvement from our Resource Efficiency Transformation initiatives, which will deliver a greater baseline efficiency next year. We also have new initiatives that will ramp and contribute more meaningfully into FY 2028, with some benefit in FY 2027. Operationally, we can be nimble with labor and scheduling to respond to visitation levels, though we plan for full staffing assuming normal conditions so we do not pull back on the guest experience. Our overall approach is to protect the guest experience while optimizing costs where appropriate. Cost inflation is a consideration, but the resource efficiency work offsets a portion of that. Ultimately, EBITDA recovery will depend on revenue recovery, the pace of lift ticket recovery, and the continued realization of our efficiency initiatives.
Thank you. We will take our next question from Xian Siew Hew Sam with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, thanks for taking the question. Continuing on the pass selling season, as you go through the rest of the year or summer, are you changing any of the strategies or marketing to drive an acceleration, or are you using the same marketing approach as the last couple months?
We are constantly evaluating results from the last deadline and asking what we learned and where we can adjust. We will apply the learnings from spring and the post-Labor Day approaches we launched last year into this year's Labor Day selling period. We tend not to make big product changes in the middle of a selling period because we want earlier buyers to retain the expected benefit, but we will adjust how we go to market—media allocation and channel strategies—based on what the data shows. The incremental dollars we put to work last fall and this spring showed good returns, so that will be front of mind heading into the fall.
Continuing on lift ticket demand next year: if pass units are down and lift tickets are higher, that could create a positive mix effect where the price per ticket visit is higher. Is that something we should think about regarding the incrementality of lift ticket visits into next year for EBITDA?
Yes, absolutely. Remember we remain well ahead of historical levels of advanced commitment despite this bad winter. In some respects, we are in a stronger position heading into next season than prior bad seasons due to the level of advanced commitment we already have. If someone chooses lift tickets instead of a pass, they will generally pay more per visit, so effective lift ticket price will go up as people move from passes to lift tickets. That said, our goal remains to maximize advanced commitment because it provides the best overall value and predictability, but we will use every lever available to drive lift ticket demand as needed.
Thank you. We will take our next question from Jeff Stantial with Stifel. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hey, good afternoon everyone. Thanks for taking our questions. On pass sales, if we go back to this time last year, Robert, I think you talked about resilience in purchasing behavior through Labor Day and some choppiness in consumer sentiment. Obviously, weather is the bigger impact so far this year, but curious if macro uncertainty may be factoring in as well based on trends so far this selling season. Also historically, when gas and flight costs are higher, what impact do you see to visitation behavior across local and destination cohorts during the season?
Right now it's tough to break out macro from weather impacts. Based on Whistler and East versus other markets, this looks much more like a condition-driven decline. Historically, the further you travel, the more sensitive visitation can be to travel costs, and when flight costs are higher some guests may drive rather than fly, which can shift local versus destination demand. We may see more local visitation in those cases, but it's not a dominant trend relative to the weather impact we experienced. Our business provides a natural hedge in tougher economic times because skiing is core recreation for many. For now, we are focused on the unique situation we face rather than the macro environment.
And as a corollary, how material is outbound travel—transatlantic or transpacific—to your visitation? Has that been a material trend or more of a narrative? If material, any opportunities in marketing to go after lapsed guests who travel internationally?
We do not see outbound travel materially replacing our domestic visitation. Our pass data shows no material increase in usage that would indicate a large shift. In some unique locations it can be meaningful, but for North American visitation overall it's not a material driver either way. A much bigger trend has been a decline in inbound international visitation to the U.S. over the last five to seven years for many reasons. If that normalizes over time, it would help, and there are broader tourism efforts to promote inbound travel, but it's not a dominant lever for our near-term planning.
Thank you. We will take our next question from Ben Chaiken with Mizuho. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Maybe one on 2012 as a comparison: with a cost base just over $2 billion, as we think about next season other than inflation, how should we think about the flow-through of incremental revenues? And separately, are there any moving parts you would flag—were there any one-time areas pulled back this year that need to come back as revenue returns?
Thanks. The biggest piece to think about is the variable component tied to demand and revenue—those costs come back with revenue as you would expect, outside of base operating cost inflation. We will also have year-over-year benefits from our Resource Efficiency Transformation; we expect to be at $106 million of annualized efficiencies versus the $82 million cumulative point this year, so you will see a year-over-year benefit from that. Other items that normally track with performance, like performance management compensation, would also return in a normal environment next year.
Just to clarify, the variable cost components associated with visitation—things like credit card fees and taxes—would come back as visitation returns?
Yes, exactly. And from a modeling perspective, this year saw an elevated effective ticket price because pass dollars were locked in while visitation fell. To model next year, separate the pass revenue piece from the lift ticket piece to get a clearer comparison of pricing changes year-over-year versus the distortion from this season's visitation decline.
Thank you. We will take our next question from Anthony Blondio with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask about pass trends versus peers. You mentioned pass sales are outperforming others in the industry. Can you dig into that a bit—frame the magnitude and the different drivers of that delta?
It's hard to be precise since we are the only public company reporting full results, but third-party transaction trackers suggest we outpaced the broader industry this spring. We attribute that to our increased media spend, the young adult product pricing and messaging, and new marketing tactics we launched last fall and continued into spring. We also believe that the strong operational performance and guest experience at our resorts, even in tough conditions, supported conversions. Those combined elements helped our relative performance versus peers.
And on M&A, what are you seeing out there? Does an abnormally poor season influence operators' decision-making to sell assets?
I generally do not comment on specific M&A. Historically, I have not seen down years trigger a wave of sales. Owners typically do not want to sell in a down year, and many are long-term family owners. Sometimes it prompts conversations years later, but it's unclear whether a year like this will drive significant near-term transactions.
We will take our next question from Patrick Scholes with Truist Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Can you talk a bit more about the new KPI called days sold? I assume it has to do with the prevalence of frequency products. Why include it now and what should we watch about that metric specifically?
We have been tracking days sold internally for some time because units alone can be misleading—one pass unit is not equivalent to one single-day product. Days sold better reflects how many days of skiing we have sold and is more closely tied to expected volume and revenue. We started discussing it publicly at the investor conference and decided to include it in our public reporting to provide more clarity given our expanding product mix, especially frequency products. Units remain important for tracking transactions, but days sold is closer to our view of expected visitation and revenue.
Thank you. We will take our next question from Brandt Montour with Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. Rob, you mentioned the Turn In Your Ticket program and the Epic Buddy ticket program. How are those programs being utilized so far? Are they in line with your underwriting? Is there a characteristic as to when holders turn them in to buy a pass throughout the cycle?
Both programs performed well on a relative basis compared to other lift ticket products. It is still early to make a full assessment of conversion into passes because many of those conversions likely happen later in the selling season. We did not see the full benefit of the programs this year because overall visitation was lower, but relative performance and engagement were strong. We will need a normal full selling period to fully assess conversion rates from those programs into pass purchases.
A second question on the competitive environment: you seem to be gaining share in pass sales versus competitors, specifically in the younger cohort where you adjusted price lower. Do you have concern that competitors who are doing worse may get more aggressive in pricing or promotions in that younger cohort and impede your ability to improve pass sales?
We cannot predict competitors' pricing, but our approach is deliberate. For young adults, we adjusted pricing based on what we learned about elasticity in that segment and believe the product was well priced and messaged. One advantage we have is our integrated, owned-operator model—when we change pricing or deploy marketing, we capture the full benefit across lift and on-mountain spend. That makes our approach more holistic and gives us flexibility that some competitors may not have. We focus on optimizing our portfolio rather than reacting to every competitor move.
This concludes the Q&A portion of today's call. I would like to now turn the call back over to Robert A. Katz for closing remarks.
Thank you. While this year presented weather challenges and tougher financial results, it also sharpened our focus and reinforced the work we are doing to address the end-to-end guest experience—from marketing to products to the entire on-mountain experience. On that point, I want to thank our frontline teams for their unwavering dedication throughout this exceptionally challenging season. As we look ahead, we have built an integrated network and platform that positions us to deliver a consistent, differentiated guest experience, strengthen loyalty, and drive long-term growth. This network allows us to deliver a more consistent experience at every touch point at scale, which remains at the heart of everything we do, and I am confident it will drive us to the next phase of our growth. Thank you all for your time today.
Thank you. This concludes today's Vail Resorts Fiscal Third Quarter 26 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.