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spk23: Please stand by, your program is about to begin. If you need any assistance during your conference today, please press star zero. Good morning and welcome to the Vail Resorts Fiscal 2023 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Currently, all callers have been placed in a listen-only mode, and following management's prepared remarks, the call will be open for your questions. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you need to remove yourself from the queue, press star 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 star 0. Please be advised, I will now turn the call over to Kirsten Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of Vail Resorts. You may begin.
spk19: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. During our earnings call yesterday, the conference call system vendor for the event experienced a significant technical outage disrupting the call. The vendor was unable to reestablish their systems yesterday evening. Therefore, we rescheduled the call for this morning. We apologize for the inconvenience this caused, and thank you for joining us this morning. Joining me on the call is Michael Barkin, 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 yesterday afternoon along with our remarks on this call are made as of today, December 9, 2022, 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 the Form 10-Q were filed yesterday afternoon with the SEC and are also available on the investor relations section of our website at www.valeresorts.com. With that said, let's turn to our fiscal 2023 first quarter results. We are pleased with our results for the quarter with resort reported EBITDA improving compared to the prior year period, primarily driven by the strong demand and visitation at our Australian resorts. Australian resorts continued to experience record visitation driven by strong demand following two years of COVID-19 related disruptions and supported by continued momentum and advanced commitment past product sales following the addition of Hotham and Falls Creek in April of 2019. Our North American summer operations continued to recover following the COVID-19 pandemic. Turning now to our 2022-2023 North American season pass sales and early season indicators. We are pleased with the results of our season pass sales, which continue to demonstrate the strength of the guest experience, our network of mountain resorts, and commitment to continually investing in the guest experience. Past product sales for the North American ski season increased approximately 6% in units and approximately 6% in sales dollars through December 5, 2022, as compared to the period in the prior year through December 6, 2021, including sales for the Seven Springs Resorts in both periods and adjusted to eliminate the impact of foreign currency by applying an exchange rate of 74 cents between the Canadian dollar and U.S. dollar in both periods for Whistler Black Home sales. Advanced commitment is our core strategy, shifting lift ticket guests across all of our mountain resorts into a commitment before the season starts, driving stability for our company and long-term lifetime value. our North American season pass program has grown dramatically over the last three years. Season pass units have grown approximately 86% in units and approximately 53% in sales dollars compared to sales for the 2019 and 2020 season through December 9th, 2019. We expect to have approximately 2.3 million guests in advanced commitment products this year generating over $800 million of revenue in advance of the season and representing over 70% of all skier visits committed to our 40 North American and Australian resorts in advance of the season in a non-refundable pass, an increase of over 1.1 million guests in the program from the 2019-2020 season, including all pass products for our North American and Australian resorts. This substantial base of pre-committed local and destination guests, revenue, and visits also creates a strong foundation for in-season ancillary spending across our 40 mountain resorts in North America and Australia. For the full pass sales season, the business achieved strong unit growth from renewing pass holders, especially guests in destination and international markets. including strong renewals among those who were new to our past program last year. Our strongest growth occurred in destination markets, which represents the largest addressable market for conversion of guests into advanced commitment and is a particularly attractive guest segment given the higher ancillary attachment. Our Epic Day Pass continues to be our highest growth product segment, targeting the large market of lower frequency skiers into advanced commitment and particularly destination guests with valuable ancillary spend. Our local markets also grew over the prior year in excess of our expectations, remaining a critical foundation for our advanced commitment strategy and are the most developed and highly penetrated markets. Sales of Epic and Epic Local passes are consistent with our expectations and with the trend seen in our September results, with unit sales declining by 12% relative to the prior year and increasing 39% over the last two years and 55% over the last three years. This represents substantial growth in our highest-priced products and among our most penetrated high-frequency skier segment, and we expected this year's performance as a result of the significant growth after last year's price reset. we continue to expect that the majority of the future growth in advanced commitment will come from the large and attractive addressable market of destination guests, primarily through transitioning lower frequency lift ticket guests into Epic Day Pass products and transitioning guests at our local and regional resorts into advanced commitment. Pass sales dollars continue to benefit from the 7.5% initial price increase and subsequent incremental price increases relative to the 2021 and 2022 season, offset by the mixed impact from the growth of new pass holders purchasing Epic Day Pass products. This year, net migration among renewing pass holders is in line with our expectations of a 4% decline year-over-year following last year's positive 10% net migration that resulted from pass holders trading up to higher value products with more access following the price reset. We proactively use the breadth of our product line and our data to retain guests in the Advanced Commitment Program by offering and in certain cases encouraging them to purchase lower priced products to best suit their needs based on their behavior. We are pleased that over the last three years, we have maintained renewal rates among our unlimited pass holders, including Epic, Epic Local, and Unlimited Regional passes, while growing these pass holders almost 75% during that time period. As previously announced, we completed a multi-year extension of our pass partnership with Telluride Ski and Golf and are pleased to continue offering Epic Pass, are four to seven day EPIC day pass with all resort access and EPIC adaptive pass guests access to Telluride. Starting next winter for the 2023-2024 North American ski season, reservations will be required for pass holders skiing or riding at Telluride. Reservations will not be required for pass holders visiting Telluride in the 2022-2023 North American ski season and more details will be provided in advance of next season. Heading into the 2022-2023 North American ski season, we are pleased with our significant base of committed guests that provide meaningful stability for our company, especially during economic uncertainty. We have strong early season conditions at our resorts in the Rockies and West, and typical seasonal variability at our resorts in the East. While our mountain resorts have not yet completed hiring for the winter season, we are on track to have the staff needed to achieve full operation of lifts and mountain terrain and deliver normal operations of important guest experiences, such as our restaurants, lodging, ski and ride school, and rental and retail locations. Hiring is still ongoing and a top priority as our mountain resort teams focus on hiring for specific roles and continue hiring to manage staffing needs that occur throughout the season. Looking forward, we are pleased with lodging booking trends for the upcoming season, which are consistent with pre-COVID-19 levels. We are also seeing lodging bookings that indicate visitation patterns may shift this year from the December holiday period into January through April. We are pleased to welcome guests to all of our resorts as the 2022-2023 North American and European ski seasons kick off with significant investments in the guest experience, including 18 newer replacement lifts across 12 resorts, which will meaningfully increase lift capacity and reduce wait times at those lift locations. At Vail Mountain, this includes the installation of a new four-person high-speed lift in the Sundown Bowl and replacement of a four-person lift with a new six-person high-speed lift in the Game Creek Bowl. At Whistler Black Home, this includes the replacement of the four-person high-speed Big Red Express lift with a new six-person high-speed lift, and replacement of the six-person Creekside gondola with a new 10-person high-speed gondola. As discussed in prior announcements, This also includes the installation of new or replacement lifts at Breckenridge, Northstar, Heavenly, Stowe, Mount Snow, Attitash, Jack Frost, Big Boulder, Boston Mills, and Brandywine. Now I would like to turn the call over to Michael to further discuss our financial results and fiscal 2023 outlook.
spk06: Thanks, Kirsten, and good morning. As Kirsten mentioned, we're pleased with our first fiscal quarter performance. Net loss attributable to Vail Resorts was $137 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 compared to a net loss attributable to Vail Resorts of $139.3 million in the prior year. Resort reported EBITDA was a loss of $96.5 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2023 compared to resort reported EBITDA loss of $108.4 million in the prior year. This increase is primarily due to the greater impact of COVID-19 and related limitations and restrictions on results in the prior year. Our balance sheet and liquidity position remains strong. Our total cash and revolver availability as of October 31, 2022, was approximately $1.8 billion, with $1.2 billion of cash on hand, $417 million of U.S. revolver availability under the Vale Holdings Credit Agreement, and $207 million of Revolver availability under the Whistler Credit Agreement. As of October 31st, 2022, our net debt was two times trailing 12 months total reported EBITDA. The company declared a quarterly cash dividend of $1.91 per share of Vail Resorts common stock that will be payable on January 10th, 2023 to shareholders of record on December 27th, 2022. We will continue to be disciplined stewards of our capital and remain committed to continuous investment in our people, strategic high return capital projects, strategic acquisition opportunities, and returning capital to our shareholders through our quarterly dividend and share repurchase program. Moving now to our fiscal 2023 outlook. We are encouraged by the strength of our past sales, the strong early season conditions for our mountain resorts in the Rockies and the West, and staffing levels, which are on track to deliver an outstanding guest experience. We are reaffirming our fiscal 2023 guidance for net income attributable to Vail Resorts of $321 million to $396 million and resort reported EBITDA guidance of $893 million to $947 million that was included in our September earnings release. Assuming a continuation of the current economic environment normal weather conditions, and no material impacts associated with COVID-19 for the 2022-2023 North American and European ski season or the 2023 Australian ski season. It is important to note that there continues to be uncertainty around the economic outlook and the impact that may have on travel and consumer behavior as we head into our primary operating season. Our guidance includes an estimated $4 million of acquisition and integration-related expenses in fiscal year 2023 associated with the acquisitions of the Seven Springs Resorts and our majority ownership in Andermatt-Sedroon. Foreign exchange rates have experienced recent volatility. The guidance assumes the foreign currency exchange rates as of our original September 2022 guidance. Relative to the fiscal 2023 guidance, if the exchange rates as of Wednesday, December 7, 2022, of 73 cents between the Canadian dollar and U.S. dollar related to the operations of Whistler Blackcomb in Canada, 67 cents between the Australian dollar and U.S. dollar related to the operations of Parisher, Falls Creek, and Hotham in Australia, and $1.06 between the Swiss franc and U.S. dollar related to the operations of Andermatt Cedroon in Switzerland were to continue for the remainder of the fiscal year We expect this would have an impact on fiscal 2023 guidance of approximately negative $6 million for resort reported EBITDA. I'll now turn the call back over to Kirsten.
spk19: Thank you, Michael. We remain dedicated to delivering an exceptional guest experience and will continue to prioritize reinvesting in the experience at our resorts, including consistently increasing capacity through lift, terrain, and food and beverage expansion projects. As announced in September, the company expects to invest approximately $180 million to $185 million in calendar year 2023 capital expenditures, excluding one-time investments related to integration activities, deferred capital associated with the Keystone and Park City projects, and $13 million of growth capital investments at Andermont-Sedron. At Keystone, we plan to complete the transformational lift-serve terrain expansion project in Bergman Bowl, increasing lift-served terrain by 550 acres with the addition of a new six-person high-speed lift. At Whistler-Blackcomb, we plan to replace the four-person high-speed Jersey Cream lift with a new six-person high-speed lift and replace the four-person high-speed Fitzsimmons lift with a new eight-person high-speed lift. At Breckenridge, we plan to upgrade the Peak 8 base area to enhance the beginner and children's experience and increase upheld capacity from this popular base area. The investment plan includes a new four-person high-speed five-chair to replace the existing two-person fixed grip lift, as well as significant improvements, including new teaching terrain and a transport carpet from the base to make the beginner experience more accessible. At Stevens Pass, we are planning to replace the two-person fixed-grip CARES chair lift with a new four-person lift, which is designed to improve out-of-base capacity and guest experience. At Attitash, we plan to replace the three-person fixed-grip Summit triple lift with a new four-person high-speed lift to increase uphill capacity and reduce guest time on the longest lift at the resort. These lift projects are subject to regulatory approvals and are currently planned to be completed in time for the 2023-2024 North American winter season. Additionally, the company plans to expand parking across four resorts by more than 500 spaces to improve the guest experience. The company is planning to introduce new technology for the 2023-2024 North American ski season will allow guests to store their pass product or lift ticket directly on their phone and scan at lifts hands-free, eliminating the need for carrying plastic cards, visiting the lift ticket window, or waiting to receive a pass or lift ticket in the mail. Once loaded on their phone, guests can store their phone in their pocket and get scanned hands-free in the lift line using Bluetooth low-energy technology. In addition to the significant enhancement of the guest experience, This technology will also reduce waste of printing plastic cards for past products and lift tickets and RFID chips as part of the company's commitment to Xero. Even after launch, the company will continue to make plastic cards available to any guests who cannot or do not want to use their phone to store their past product or lift ticket. The company is also investing in network-wide scalable technology that will enhance our analytics, e-commerce, and guest engagement tools to improve our ability to target our guest outreach personalized messages and improve conversion. In addition to these investments, we are pleased to announce plans to invest approximately $13 million at Andermont Chaudron in high impact growth capital projects as an initial step in a multi-year strategic growth investment plan to enhance the guest experience on the mountain, which will be funded by the 110 million Swiss franc capital that was invested as part of the purchase of our majority stake in Andermatt-Cedroon. As part of the calendar year 2023 investments, we are planning to upgrade and expand Cedroon snowmaking to enhance the experience for key intermediate terrain. In addition, we plan to enhance the on-mountain dining experience with renovations to the Milet and Naushen restaurants and replacement of the Vault J restaurant. These investments are expected to be completed ahead of the 2023-2024 European ski season and remain subject to regulatory approvals. Including $1 million of one-time investments related to integration activities, $10 million of deferred capital associated with the Keystone and Park City projects, and $13 million of growth capital investments Andermatt-Sedroon, our total capital plan for calendar year 2023 is expected to be approximately $204 million to $209 million. We will provide further detail on our calendar year 2023 capital plan in March 2023. In 2017, Vail Resorts announced an ambitious plan to take action to address our direct impact with a commitment to achieve net zero net operating footprint by 2030, including zero net emissions, zero waste to landfill, and zero net operating impact on forests and habitats. As recently announced in our EPIC Promise Progress Report, we are pleased to be on track to achieve a zero net operating footprint by 2030 and have achieved 100 percent renewable electricity across our North American mountain resorts within the past fiscal year. The company is ahead of schedule to meet its emissions goals and is on track to reach zero waste to landfill and zero net operating impact on forests and habitats to achieve a zero net operating footprint by 2030. We remain dedicated to doing our part as responsible stewards of the great outdoors and committed partners to our communities. More information about our commitment to zero and efforts towards sustainability can be found at epicpromise.com. As announced last week, we are pleased to welcome Angela Korch back to Vail Resorts as our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, effective December 22, 2022. Angela rejoins Vail Resorts from Core Power Yoga, where she served as Chief Financial Officer since May 2020. after previously spending more than a decade in successive leadership roles within Vail Resorts Finance Organization, working closely with our current CFO, Michael Barkin. Angela originally joined Vail Resorts in 2010 and was most recently in the role of Vice President of Corporate and Mountain Finance, responsible for supporting the company's mountain division during a rapid expansion of its resort network. During her tenure, she managed financial and capital allocation strategies, transformed core processes, and played an integral role in the integration of 32 mountain resorts. Angela is a strong leader with deep experience in our industry, a passion for our sport, and a long history with our company. I want to take this moment to thank Michael Barkin for his service to the company. After 10 years with the company and nine years as CFO, Michael will be stepping down to pursue personal goals effective January 1, 2023. Michael has played a central role in the company's national and global expansion, including the acquisition and integration of 34 resorts across four countries. Michael has built a best-in-class finance organization that has allowed Vail Resorts to grow and scale successfully. On a personal level, I will miss Michael tremendously. He has been a strategic thought partner and my friend for the past 10 years. I am grateful for his work to build an outstanding team of finance leaders, including our new CFO, Angela Korch, who will help lead our company into the future. Michael will be greatly missed, and on behalf of the company, I want to express my sincere gratitude to Michael for his 10 years of service and leadership. In closing, I would like to thank all of our employees, especially our frontline teams, for their passion, hard work, and commitment to creating an experience of a lifetime for our guests. The guest experience that our employees create is our mission as a company and lies at the center of our success. We all look forward to welcoming skiers and riders back to our mountain resorts this winter season. At this time, Michael and I will be happy to answer your questions. Operator, we are now ready for questions.
spk23: At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. Again, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We'll take our first question from John Kelly with Bank of America.
spk21: Hi, good morning, everyone. Michael, we'll maybe just start with thanking you for all your help, your guidance, maybe a little bit of your patience over the years. Best wishes in your next venture here.
spk22: Thanks so much, John.
spk21: So, Kirsten, if we were going to kind of dig into one thing that was kind of new on this release, I think it would probably be around some of your commentary on the lodging bookings. So, could we expand on that a little bit, specifically the comment around sort of the patterns that you're seeing around the December holiday period this year. Um, and sort of, I think that the perspective that a lot of questions we're receiving have to do with, you know, is there an issue or something that's, that's kind of changing the pattern around, you know, either the fiscal second quarter specifically around the holiday, or is this sort of a kind of more natural yield management just as that period is always full and people are booking, you know, kind of further out in the pattern you're able to track. kind of similar people. Just help us understand that comment and what you're getting at a little bit more there.
spk19: Thank you, Sean. Yeah, regarding our pacing on the books and bookings, they look good versus pre-COVID levels, and we're pleased to see that. So that's in total. As noted, we are seeing some shift in the timing within that. And between December into January through April and wanted to be transparent about that. The pacing for the entire season is looking strong and good at this point. And as you know, we noted last year, we have seen more of a move to off-peak, which we consider to be a positive thing. It's still early in the season, but wanted to note that we're seeing some shifting within the total bookings from December into January through April.
spk21: That's helpful. And then, Kirsten, maybe just to kind of push or dig a little further on that. We talk about bookings or pacing. Are we talking about sort of nights and volumes or are we including, are we talking about dollars? So are we including rate increases? Obviously, for those of us who kind of focus on lots of leisure categories, you know, pricing is up quite dramatically in most, you know, leisure activities out there. So you help us think about, are we talking, yeah, volume or dollars? Because we would think that probably dollars should be doing, you know, materially better than just, you know, than just bookings.
spk19: Yes. To clarify, Sean, I am not referring to dollars. I am talking about occupancy.
spk16: Great. Thank you very much.
spk23: Thanks, Sean. We'll take our next question from Ben Chaiken with Credit Suisse.
spk08: Hey, how's it going? Michael, just wanted to echo Sean, say, you know, good luck with whatever comes next. It's been a pleasure. And Hopefully you can personally boost the FY23 skier visit number. Thanks. With regards to ancillary, there seems to be a push to move skiers into advanced ticket options, especially the lower frequency. Presumably this brings you closer to a very valuable customer and thus better situates you to drive ancillary spend. I guess the two questions on that would be, when you look at the existing base of lower frequency skiers that you have, This may be tough, but how under-penetrated do you think you are? Is that something you can quantify? Have you done it like internally and then set in? Can you kind of just talk about the leverage you can pull once that advanced decision has been made? Is it as simple as email? I guess the question is basically saying like after the advanced purchase decision has been made by the customer, is that enough? or users are still more work on your end? And my frame of reference for these questions is, again, the lower frequency guests with the advanced purchase decision. Thanks.
spk19: Yes. Hi, Ben. Thank you for the question. So we do believe that as it relates to advanced commitment, the largest addressable market to really penetrate is the lower frequency destination guests. And it is a large and attractive market. market. They are low frequency destination guests. Because they're destination guests, they do tend to spend on ancillary businesses such as F&B, rentals, ski school. When we think about this coming season, I'd say overall, we are in a very good position in that we have over 2.3 million guests pre-committed to come visit our resorts this season. And when you think about the value of that and the travel and leisure business of knowing 2.3 million people are pre-committed to coming and visiting, that's the benefit of the units of pass sales and the dollars that we've sold, but also the ancillary attachment that naturally comes with that. Related to that, in terms of ancillary attachment, you know, there's some natural behaviors that occur in terms of ancillary attachment, but we also have a data-driven approach to connecting with those guests in a way that's relevant to them to encourage ancillary capture. And also pass holders receive what I would call like membership benefits with Epic Mountain Rewards with discounts on our ancillary. So as we pursue this addressable market, there's a natural spend behavior that already exists. And of course, our goal is to increase that share of wallet as they come to our resorts.
spk08: Okay, that makes sense. So it's like almost two-pronged. It's increase the penetration of the existing lower frequency, part one, and then part two, increase the deeper into the TAM of the potential lower frequency guests.
spk19: Yes. And utilize our data to increase our capture.
spk08: Yes. And then just one quick thought. Is that something you, in terms of your existing lower frequency guest base, have you guys tried to take a swing at like quantifying how penetrated you are relative to where you would like to be? Is that something you've done? And would you share that ever?
spk19: We're not sharing that number today, but we obviously quantify the TAM and the progress we're making on the TAM and continue to believe that there is a lot of upside potential in terms of penetrating that addressable market.
spk14: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
spk19: Thanks, Ben.
spk23: We'll take our next question from Chris Ruanka with Deutsche Bank.
spk03: Hey, good morning, everyone, and Michael, thanks for all the help over the years, and best of luck. Thanks, Chris. Yeah, so the question is kind of on if you're seeing any discernible difference in, I guess, past buying behavior among your local and, say, Western guests. Just try and drill down a little bit into it. whether there's any noticeable impact yet from some of these economic pressures in terms of when people are buying or what kind of paths they're buying relative to what they did last year or maybe in 2019 for those that you have history with.
spk19: Thanks, Chris. You know, overall, I think the underlying dynamics I feel very good about and do not see any underlying shifts in behavior dynamics that are concerning at this point. The key metric that I look at is our renewing pass holders, and our renewing pass holders continue to be strong, including and especially the first-time pass holders that joined last year or were new to the program last year. To me, that really validates the resort network the guest experience and our investments that we're making into that experience. We are seeing both local and destination grew versus prior year, which I do feel very good about in terms of, yeah, seeing growth in both of those, especially after a really strong growth year last year to have growth on top of that is a pretty incredible accomplishment. I think what happening in terms of our pass holder mix is the progress that we're making on penetrating that destination addressable market with Epic Day Pass and that is a product that's designed very specifically to attract and penetrate into that addressable market and that is so it's very good news that we're making progress there on Epic Day Pass and we think that that's a really valuable guest and so In terms of our overall path mix, that's probably the biggest shift that we've had is the introduction of Epic Day Pass and making progress against that market that, you know, prior to launching Epic Day Pass, we really would not have seen a ton of success with that addressable market because they were never going to come into an Epic or an Epic Local Pass given the high-frequency nature of those products.
spk03: Okay, super helpful. And just as a follow-up, I I know you mentioned you're not completely done with hiring yet for the full season, but any surprises, positive or negative, as you're going through that process in terms of cost or availability, and then anything new on the longer-term employee housing projects or initiatives?
spk19: Yeah, I'm really pleased with where we are on recruiting, retention, talent overall. Our investments in the employee experience We're seeing significant improvements versus where we were last year. Our hiring is ahead of schedule. We have significantly higher levels overall in staff than we did last year. And as I mentioned, hiring is still ongoing. It's a top priority for our mountain resort teams. They are still hiring for some specific roles. And we'll see them continuing to hire through the season as staffing needs occur through the season. you know, I feel very good that we're on track to have the staff that we need for full operations of lift and mountain terrain, normal operations of some of the ancillary businesses that I shared earlier. You know, I have noted that one of the biggest challenges to getting fully staffed is affordable housing. We as a company are committed to investing in affordable housing. We have increased our affordable housing options for employees versus last year. And this has been and continues to be a challenge in our mountain communities. So there's ongoing work that we need to do to make progress on this and continue to partner with our communities so that they also make it a priority.
spk04: Okay. Very good. Thanks, everyone.
spk23: Thanks, Chris. We'll take our next question from Laurent Vasilevsky with BNP Paribus Exane.
spk24: Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my question.
spk25: I wanted to follow up on Ben's question with regards to ancillary revenue. Michael, should we assume that ancillary spend per visit gets back to pre-COVID levels? What's actually embedded in guidance? Or are you anticipating, based on your commentary about economic uncertainty, that it might not come back to the pandemic levels.
spk06: Thanks, Lauren. We, you know, on ancillary, we look at this, you know, at a much more granular level in terms of, you know, by resort and, you know, whether those guests are destination or local. And so I think one important thing to keep in mind relative to pre-COVID levels in particular is that the resort mix has shifted actually, right? As we incorporated peak resorts and as our eastern resorts grow, the yield at those resorts is actually lower, as you would imagine, than at our destination resorts. And so there's going to be a mix shift component to that when you look at historical financials over time. You know, from this base going forward, certainly our goal is to increase attachment over time. You know, that's certainly one of our goals. And, you know, every year we look at that as we did this year in terms of guidance of what attachment we think we'll be able to achieve. And certainly, as Kirsten mentioned, adding more destination guests into our PASS program should over time be helpful relative to that.
spk19: And, Loren, I would just build on that to also note that our guidance assumes that the current economic conditions continue. And if there was a significant change, that could impact our outlook.
spk25: Okay. Very helpful. And, Kirsten, it's great to hear about the smartphone initiative. Are there any learnings or are there any other initiatives that we should contemplate Maybe not for this year, but maybe going forward, that could maybe, you know, further elevate the consumer experience. And then one, sorry, one housekeeping question, Michael. I didn't see this in the press release, but should we still anticipate $175 million investment in employee wages? Or was that up since that announcement earlier this spring?
spk06: I'll take that one. The $175 million investment in wages was incorporated into our guidance in September that we reaffirmed, and so we are on track with that.
spk19: With regards to your question about the guest experience, we are very excited about mobile pass and mobile lift tickets. That is actually being tested this season for a rollout to our guests next season. And, you know, we have not announced any other innovations at this point that I'm discussing, but I will tell you that, yeah, we're constantly focused on every aspect of the guest experience and where can we make investments or innovate in order to make that better.
spk16: Very helpful. Thank you very much. Best of luck. Thank you.
spk23: We'll take our next question from Jeff Stanteel with Stiefel.
spk02: Hey, good morning, everyone. Let me start by echoing some of my peer sentiment and say thank you, Michael, for all your help over these years and best of luck on your next venture. You know, just starting off here, I wanted to hone back in on some of the lodging bookings color. Kirsten, you talked to bookings pacing in line with pre-COVID levels. If memory serves that this time last year you were trending on more ahead versus pre-COVID. So, you know, is that called deceleration? Is that more a function of some of the pent-up demand that we saw last season? I do recall you did talk to tough rev par comps on the last earnings call. Or is there anything in here more on the macro? Thanks.
spk19: Yeah. Hi, Jeff. I think we did see some different dynamics last year with COVID. There was a lot of pent-up demand for travel. and people getting back to having experiences. And so, you know, there were some dynamics that we saw where decisions and bookings were made very early and much earlier than typical. There was a lot of enthusiasm and pent-up demand. So I think last year there were just some unique dynamics as you know, people got back out doing things. And at least what we're seeing right now in our indicators is returning more to a pattern that we would have seen pre-COVID.
spk02: Okay. That makes sense. Thank you, Kirsten. And then, you know, for my follow-up, moving to call it the Epic Path Tiering Strategy, now that the selling season is has wrapped up and you've been able to parse through some of the data. Any thoughts on potentially continuing to introduce new pricing tiers in order to continue to penetrate that more lower frequency destination, currently window ticket skier? And apologies for potentially front-running the investor day here, but any thoughts there would be awesome.
spk19: That's okay. We are always looking at that. We're always looking at the addressable market? And what do we think are the barriers among that addressable market? And does our product and pricing portfolio address those barriers in order to convert them into an advanced commitment? So we're always assessing that. And last year, we created a new tier within Epic DayPass that was specifically targeted to guests in our local and regional resorts. It's restricted to only 22 resorts, resorts like Mount Sunapee or Afton Alps. And that product was designed and priced in such a way to convert those guests into advanced commitment. We still think that there's more potential there to grow that particular product. And we're always looking at what are the other ways to address the barriers to convert into advanced commitment, primarily because advanced commitment, we believe, is just so fundamental to the stability of our company, but also to lifetime value and long-term growth and loyalty.
spk15: Great. Very helpful. Thank you both.
spk16: Thanks, Steph.
spk23: We'll take our next question from Gregory Miller with Truist Securities.
spk05: Good morning. I have one question on behalf of my colleague, Patrick Scholes, and this relates to the booking pace. Could you discuss how ADR is tracking for this coming winter?
spk19: You know, I think we feel good about where ADR is in addition to how we feel about occupancy. And really the main kind of unique dynamic that we're seeing is what we called out and noted, which is some indications of a potential shift in behavior between December and January through April, but otherwise feeling good about the way ADR and occupancy is tracking.
spk13: Thank you very much.
spk16: Thank you.
spk23: We'll take our last question from David Katz with Jefferies.
spk26: Good morning. Michael, thanks for everything and all the best. I wanted to just focus on mountain margins, if I may. You know, with a lot of the ins and outs and a lot of the discussion around labor costs, etc., can you give us a little bit of kind of long-term aspirational margin levels or kind of a new normal margin, given everything we've gone through and everything you've done?
spk19: Well, I think that, you know, we, as I to comment on long term we are very focused on margin and we are constantly looking for ways to improve margin obviously this year we had a significant investment in our employees and we are constantly looking at one cost discipline and two efficiencies to continue to improve the margin and offset any investments that we make in the future. So while I can't commit to a specific margin at this point, and maybe we can talk more about that at the investor conference and where we think we're headed as a company, what I would say is that we're very focused on it and very focused on cost discipline and efficiency.
spk06: Yeah, and maybe just fair enough to build on that, I think the... You know, I think, you know, with the employee investment that Kirsten talked about, right, in our guidance, we're guiding to 31% EBITDA margins, which, of course, you know, we built up over time. And, you know, the fundamentals of our business model, right, result in very strong flow through from revenue growth and very strong free cash flow conversion. And to Kirsten's point, you know, I think the fact that we were able to invest as much as we are investing and continue to drive margins in the business and, you know, really setting that foundation up for the strength of our free cash flow, which, as Kirsten said, is something that we have been focused on and, yeah, confident that we'll continue to focus on. I appreciate that.
spk26: And as my follow-up, I was hoping we could spend a minute or two on Andermatt and sort of a broader view about Europe. And again, I might be trying to front run your analyst meeting, but I'd love to get more of a sense for your vision for that property and whether we should look at this as one step in a journey and building more of a European presence.
spk19: Yeah, thank you for the question. We are incredibly excited about Andermont. It is already an amazing mountain resort with strong investment in the base area to attract a high-end European skier. And we're excited to continue to invest in that. We believe that this is the perfect sort of first step for us in Europe. to come in with Andermatt to listen, to learn, to build our reputation, and that there is significant opportunity for Andermatt to grow its share of the luxury European skier market. Longer term, as we've shared at our investor conferences, the addressable market in Europe is almost three times the size of North America. And we believe that that is a big opportunity for us for growth. And we have not an easy market to penetrate. So a long-term strategy to build our experience, our credibility, and hopefully over time build a network of resorts that can achieve value creation for our shareholders.
spk11: Okay, perfect. Thank you.
spk16: Thank you.
spk23: This concludes the Q&A portion of today's call. I would now like to turn the call back over to Kirsten Lynch for closing remarks.
spk19: Thank you, Operator. This concludes our fiscal 2023 first quarter earnings call. Thank you to everyone who joined us today. Please feel free to reach out to me or Michael directly should you have any further questions. Thank you for your time this morning, and goodbye.
spk23: This concludes today's Vail Resorts Fiscal First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call and Webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you. you you Thank you. Thank you. Good morning and welcome to the Vail Resorts Fiscal 2023 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Currently, all callers have been placed in a listen-only mode, and following management's prepared remarks, the call will be open for your questions. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you need to remove yourself from the queue, press star 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 star zero. Please be advised, I will now turn the call over to Kirsten Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of Vail Resorts. You may begin.
spk19: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. During our earnings call yesterday, the conference call system vendor for the event experienced a significant technical outage disrupting the call. The vendor was unable to reestablish their systems yesterday evening, therefore we rescheduled the call for this morning. We apologize for the inconvenience this caused and thank you for joining us this morning. Joining me on the call is Michael Barkin, 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 yesterday afternoon along with our remarks on this call are made as of today, December 9, 2022, 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 the Form 10-Q were filed yesterday afternoon with the SEC and are also available on the investor relations section of our website at www.valeresorts.com. With that said, let's turn to our fiscal 2023 first quarter results. We are pleased with our results for the quarter with resort reported EBITDA improving compared to the prior year period, primarily driven by the strong demand and visitation at our Australian resorts. Australian resorts continued to experience record visitation driven by strong demand following two years of COVID-19 related disruptions and supported by continued momentum and advanced commitment past product sales following the addition of Hotham and Falls Creek in April of 2019. Our North American summer operations continued to recover following the COVID-19 pandemic. Turning now to our 2022-2023 North American season pass sales and early season indicators. We are pleased with the results of our season pass sales, which continue to demonstrate the strength of the guest experience, our network of mountain resorts, and commitment to continually investing in the guest experience. past product sales for the North American ski season increased approximately 6% in units and approximately 6% in sales dollars through December 5, 2022, as compared to the period in the prior year through December 6, 2021, including sales for the Seven Springs Resorts in both periods and adjusted to eliminate the impact of foreign currency by applying an exchange rate of 74 cents between the Canadian dollar and U.S. dollar in both periods for Whistler Blackcomb sales. Advanced commitment is our core strategy, shifting lift ticket guests across all of our mountain resorts into a commitment before the season starts, driving stability for our company and long-term lifetime value. Our North American Season Pass program has grown dramatically over the last three years. Season Pass units have grown approximately 86% in units and approximately 53% in sales dollars compared to sales for the 2019 and 2020 season through December 9, 2019. We expect to have approximately 2.3 million guests in advanced commitment products this year, generating over $800 million of revenue in advance of the season and representing over 70% of all skier visits committed to our 40 North American and Australian resorts in advance of the season in a non-refundable path, an increase of over 1.1 million guests in the program from the 2019-2020 season, including all past products for our North American and Australian resorts. This substantial base of pre-committed local and destination guests, revenue, and visits also creates a strong foundation for in-season ancillary spending across our 40 mountain resorts in North America and Australia. For the full pass sales season, the business achieved strong unit growth from renewing pass holders, especially guests in destination and international markets, including strong renewals among those who were new to our pass program last year. Our strongest growth occurred in destination markets which represents the largest addressable market for conversion of guests into advanced commitment and is a particularly attractive guest segment given the higher ancillary attachment. Our Epic Day Pass continues to be our highest growth product segment, targeting the large market of lower frequency skiers into advanced commitment and particularly destination guests with valuable ancillary spend. Our local markets also grew over the prior year in excess of our expectations, remaining a critical foundation for our advanced commitment strategy and are the most developed and highly penetrated markets. Sales of Epic and Epic Local passes are consistent with our expectations and with the trend seen in our September results, with unit sales declining by 12% relative to the prior year and increasing 39% over the last two years and 55% over the last three years. This represents substantial growth in our highest priced products and among our most penetrated high frequency skier segment. And we expected this year's performance as a result of the significant growth after last year's price reset. We continue to expect that the majority of the future growth and advanced commitment will come from the large and attractive addressable market of destination guests, primarily through transitioning lower-frequency lift ticket guests into Epic Day Pass products and transitioning guests at our local and regional resorts into Advanced Commitment. Pass sales dollars continue to benefit from the 7.5% initial price increase and subsequent incremental price increases relative to the 2021 and 2022 season, offset by the mixed impact from the growth of new pass holders purchasing Epic Day Pass products. This year, net migration among renewing pass holders is in line with our expectations of a 4% decline year-over-year following last year's positive 10% net migration that resulted from pass holders trading up to higher value products with more access following the price reset. We proactively use the breadth of our product line and our data to retain guests in the Advanced Commitment Program by offering, and in certain cases, encouraging them to purchase lower priced products to best suit their needs based on their behavior. We are pleased that over the last three years, we have maintained renewal rates among our unlimited pass holders, including Epic, Epic Local, and Unlimited Regional passes, while growing these pass holders almost 75% during that time period. As previously announced, we completed a multi-year extension of our pass partnership with Telluride Ski and Golf and are pleased to continue offering Epic Pass, are four to seven day epic day pass with all resort access and epic adaptive pass guests access to Telluride. Starting next winter for the 2023-2024 North American ski season, reservations will be required for pass holders skiing or riding at Telluride. Reservations will not be required for pass holders visiting Telluride in the 2022-2023 North American ski season and more details will be provided in advance of next season. Heading into the 2022-2023 North American ski season, we are pleased with our significant base of committed guests that provide meaningful stability for our company, especially during economic uncertainty. We have strong early season conditions at our resorts in the Rockies and West, and typical seasonal variability at our resorts in the East. While our mountain resorts have not yet completed hiring for the winter season, we are on track to have the staff needed to achieve full operation of lifts and mountain terrain and deliver normal operations of important guest experiences, such as our restaurants, lodging, ski and ride school, and rental and retail locations. Hiring is still ongoing and a top priority as our mountain resort teams focus on hiring for specific roles and continue hiring to manage staffing needs that occur throughout the season. Looking forward, we are pleased with lodging booking trends for the upcoming season, which are consistent with pre-COVID-19 levels. We are also seeing lodging bookings that indicate visitation patterns may shift this year from the December holiday period into January through April. We are pleased to welcome guests to all of our resorts as the 2022-2023 North American and European ski seasons kick off with significant investments in the guest experience, including 18 newer replacement lifts across 12 resorts, which will meaningfully increase lift capacity and reduce wait times at those lift locations. At Vail Mountain, this includes the installation of a new four-person high-speed lift in the Sundown Bowl and replacement of a four-person lift with a new six-person high-speed lift in the Game Creek Bowl. At Whistler Black Home, this includes the replacement of the four-person high-speed Big Red Express lift with a new six-person high-speed lift, and replacement of the six-person Creekside gondola with a new 10-person high-speed gondola. As discussed in prior announcements, This also includes the installation of new or replacement lifts at Breckenridge, Northstar, Heavenly, Stowe, Mount Snow, Attitash, Jack Frost, Big Boulder, Boston Mills, and Brandywine. Now I would like to turn the call over to Michael to further discuss our financial results and fiscal 2023 outlook.
spk06: Thanks, Kirsten, and good morning. As Kirsten mentioned, we're pleased with our first fiscal quarter performance. Net loss attributable to Vail Resorts was $137 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 compared to a net loss attributable to Vail Resorts of $139.3 million in the prior year. Resort reported EBITDA was a loss of $96.5 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2023 compared to resort reported EBITDA loss of $108.4 million in the prior year. This increase is primarily due to the greater impact of COVID-19 and related limitations and restrictions on results in the prior year. Our balance sheet and liquidity position remains strong. Our total cash and revolver availability as of October 31, 2022, was approximately $1.8 billion, with $1.2 billion of cash on hand, $417 million of U.S. revolver availability under the Vale Holdings Credit Agreement, and $207 million of Revolver availability under the Whistler Credit Agreement. As of October 31st, 2022, our net debt was two times trailing 12 months total reported EBITDA. The company declared a quarterly cash dividend of $1.91 per share of Vail Resorts common stock that will be payable on January 10th, 2023 to shareholders of record on December 27th, 2022. We will continue to be disciplined stewards of our capital and remain committed to continuous investment in our people, strategic high return capital projects, strategic acquisition opportunities, and returning capital to our shareholders through our quarterly dividend and share repurchase program. Moving now to our fiscal 2023 outlook. We are encouraged by the strength of our past sales, the strong early season conditions for our mountain resorts in the Rockies and the West, and staffing levels, which are on track to deliver an outstanding guest experience. We are reaffirming our fiscal 2023 guidance for net income attributable to Vail Resorts of $321 million to $396 million and resort reported EBITDA guidance of $893 million to $947 million that was included in our September earnings release, assuming a continuation of the current economic environment normal weather conditions, and no material impacts associated with COVID-19 for the 2022-2023 North American and European ski season or the 2023 Australian ski season. It is important to note that there continues to be uncertainty around the economic outlook and the impact that may have on travel and consumer behavior as we head into our primary operating season. Our guidance includes an estimated $4 million of acquisition and integration-related expenses in fiscal year 2023 associated with the acquisitions of the Seven Springs Resorts and our majority ownership in Andermatt-Sedroon. Foreign exchange rates have experienced recent volatility. The guidance assumes the foreign currency exchange rates as of our original September 2022 guidance. Relative to the fiscal 2023 guidance, if the exchange rates as of Wednesday, December 7, 2022, of 73 cents between the Canadian dollar and U.S. dollar related to the operations of Whistler Blackcomb in Canada, 67 cents between the Australian dollar and U.S. dollar related to the operations of Parisher, Falls Creek, and Hotham in Australia, and $1.06 between the Swiss franc and U.S. dollar related to the operations of Andermatt Cedroon in Switzerland were to continue for the remainder of the fiscal year We expect this would have an impact on fiscal 2023 guidance of approximately negative $6 million for resort-reported EBITDA. I'll now turn the call back over to Kirsten.
spk19: Thank you, Michael. We remain dedicated to delivering an exceptional guest experience and will continue to prioritize reinvesting in the experience at our resorts, including consistently increasing capacity through lift, terrain, and food and beverage expansion projects. As announced in September, the company expects to invest approximately $180 million to $185 million in calendar year 2023 capital expenditures, excluding one-time investments related to integration activities, deferred capital associated with the Keystone and Park City projects, and $13 million of growth capital investments at Andermont-Sedron. At Keystone, we plan to complete the transformational lift-serve terrain expansion project in Bergman Bowl, increasing lift-served terrain by 550 acres with the addition of a new six-person high-speed lift. At Whistler-Blackcomb, we plan to replace the four-person high-speed Jersey Cream lift with a new six-person high-speed lift and replace the four-person high-speed Fitzsimmons lift with a new eight-person high-speed lift. At Breckenridge, we plan to upgrade the Peak 8 base area to enhance the beginner and children's experience and increase upheld capacity from this popular base area. The investment plan includes a new four-person high-speed five-chair to replace the existing two-person fixed grip lift, as well as significant improvements, including new teaching terrain and a transport carpet from the base to make the beginner experience more accessible. At Stevens Pass, we are planning to replace the two-person fixed-grip CARES chair lift with a new four-person lift, which is designed to improve out-of-base capacity and guest experience. At Attitash, we plan to replace the three-person fixed-grip Summit triple lift with a new four-person high-speed lift to increase uphill capacity and reduce guest time on the longest lift at the resort. These lift projects are subject to regulatory approvals and are currently planned to be completed in time for the 2023-2024 North American winter season. Additionally, the company plans to expand parking across four resorts by more than 500 spaces to improve the guest experience. The company is planning to introduce new technology for the 2023-2024 North American ski season will allow guests to store their pass product or lift ticket directly on their phone and scan at lifts hands-free, eliminating the need for carrying plastic cards, visiting the lift ticket window, or waiting to receive a pass or lift ticket in the mail. Once loaded on their phone, guests can store their phone in their pocket and get scanned hands-free in the lift line using Bluetooth low-energy technology. In addition to the significant enhancement of the guest experience, This technology will also reduce waste of printing plastic cards for past products and lift tickets and RFID chips as part of the company's commitment to Xero. Even after launch, the company will continue to make plastic cards available to any guests who cannot or do not want to use their phone to store their past product or lift ticket. The company is also investing in network-wide scalable technology that will enhance our analytics, e-commerce, and guest engagement tools to improve our ability to target our guest outreach personalized messages and improve conversion. In addition to these investments, we are pleased to announce plans to invest approximately $13 million at Andermont Chaudron in high impact growth capital projects as an initial step in a multi-year strategic growth investment plan to enhance the guest experience on the mountain, which will be funded by the 110 million Swiss franc capital that was invested as part of the purchase of our majority stake in Andermatt-Cedroon. As part of the calendar year 2023 investments, we are planning to upgrade and expand Cedroon snowmaking to enhance the experience for key intermediate terrain. In addition, we plan to enhance the on-mountain dining experience with renovations to the Milet and Naushen restaurants and replacement of the Vault J restaurant. These investments are expected to be completed ahead of the 2023-2024 European ski season and remain subject to regulatory approvals. Including $1 million of one-time investments related to integration activities, $10 million of deferred capital associated with the Keystone and Park City projects, and $13 million of growth capital investments Andermatt-Sedroon, our total capital plan for calendar year 2023 is expected to be approximately $204 million to $209 million. We will provide further detail on our calendar year 2023 capital plan in March 2023. In 2017, Vail Resorts announced an ambitious plan to take action to address our direct impact with a commitment to achieve net zero net operating footprint by 2030, including zero net emissions, zero waste to landfills, and zero net operating impact on forests and habitat. As recently announced in our EPIC Promise Progress Report, we are pleased to be on track to achieve a zero net operating footprint by 2030 and have achieved 100% renewable electricity across our North American mountain resorts within the past fiscal year. The company is ahead of schedule to meet its emissions goals and is on track to reach zero waste to landfill and zero net operating impact on forests and habitats to achieve a zero net operating footprint by 2030. We remain dedicated to doing our part as responsible stewards of the great outdoors and committed partners to our communities. More information about our commitment to zero and efforts towards sustainability can be found at epicpromise.com. As announced last week, we are pleased to welcome Angela Korch back to Vail Resorts as our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, effective December 22, 2022. Angela rejoins Vail Resorts from Core Power Yoga, where she served as Chief Financial Officer since May 2020, after previously spending more than a decade in successive leadership roles within Vail Resorts Finance Organization, working closely with our current CFO, Michael Barkin. Angela originally joined Vail Resorts in 2010 and was most recently in the role of Vice President of Corporate and Mountain Finance, responsible for supporting the company's mountain division during a rapid expansion of its resort network. During her tenure, she managed financial and capital allocation strategies, transformed core processes, and played an integral role in the integration of 32 mountain resorts. Angela is a strong leader with deep experience in our industry, a passion for our sport, and a long history with our company. I want to take this moment to thank Michael Barkin for his service to the company. After 10 years with the company and nine years as CFO, Michael will be stepping down to pursue personal goals effective January 1, 2023. Michael has played a central role in the company's national and global expansion, including the acquisition and integration of 34 resorts across four countries. Michael has built a best-in-class finance organization that has allowed Vail Resorts to grow and scale successfully. On a personal level, I will miss Michael tremendously. He has been a strategic thought partner and my friend for the past 10 years. I am grateful for his work to build an outstanding team of finance leaders, including our new CFO, Angela Korch, who will help lead our company into the future. Michael will be greatly missed, and on behalf of the company, I want to express my sincere gratitude to Michael for his 10 years of service and leadership. In closing, I would like to thank all of our employees, especially our frontline team, for their passion, hard work, and commitment to creating an experience of a lifetime for our guests. The guest experience that our employees create is our mission as a company and lies at the center of our success. We all look forward to welcoming skiers and riders back to our mountain resorts this winter season. At this time, Michael and I will be happy to answer your questions. Operator, we are now ready for questions.
spk23: At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. You may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. Again, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We'll take our first question from John Kelly with Bank of America.
spk21: Hi, good morning, everyone. Michael, maybe just start with thanking you for all your help, your guidance, maybe a little bit of your patience over the years. Best wishes in your next venture here.
spk22: Thanks so much, John.
spk21: So, you know, Kirsten, if we were going to kind of dig into one thing, you know, that was kind of new on, you know, this release, I think it would probably be around some of your commentary on the lodging bookings. So could we expand on that a little bit, you know, specifically the comment around sort of the patterns that you're seeing around the December holiday period this year? And sort of I think the perspective that a lot of questions we're receiving have to do with, you know, is there an issue or something that's kind of changing the pattern around, you know, either the fiscal second quarter or specifically around the holiday or is this sort of a kind of more natural yield management just as that period is always full and people are booking, you know, kind of further out in the pattern you're able to track kind of similar people. Just help us understand that comment and what you're getting at a little bit more there.
spk19: Thank you, Sean. Yeah, regarding our pacing on the books and bookings, they look good versus pre-COVID levels and we're pleased to see that. So that's in total. As noted, we are seeing some shift in the timing within that and between December into January through April and wanted to be transparent about that. The pacing for the entire season is looking strong and good at this point. And as we noted last year, we have seen more of a move to off-peak, which we consider to be a positive thing. It's still early in the season, but wanted to note that we're seeing some shifting within the total bookings from December into January through April.
spk21: That's helpful. And then, Kirsten, maybe just to kind of push or dig a little further on that. We talk about bookings or pacing. Are we talking about sort of nights and volumes, or are we including – are we talking about dollars? So are we including rate increases? Obviously, for those of us who kind of focus on lots of leisure categories – pricing is up quite dramatically in most leisure activities out there. So help us think about, are we talking volume or dollars? Because we would think that probably dollars should be doing materially better than just bookings.
spk19: Yes. To clarify, Sean, I am not referring to dollars. I am talking about occupancy.
spk16: Great. Thank you very much.
spk19: Thanks, Sean.
spk23: We'll take our next question from Ben Chaikin with Credit Suisse.
spk08: Hey, how's it going? Michael, just wanted to echo Sean, say, you know, good luck with whatever comes next. It's been a pleasure, and hopefully you can, you know, personally boost the FY23 scare visit number. Thanks, bud. With regards to ancillary, there seems to be a push to move skiers into advanced ticket options, especially the lower frequency. Presumably this brings you closer to a very valuable customer and thus better situates you to drive ancillary spend. I guess the two questions on that would be when you look at the existing base of lower frequency skiers that you have, this may be tough, but how under-penetrated do you think you are? Is that something you can quantify? Have you done it internally and then set in Can you kind of just talk about the leverage you can pull once that advanced decision has been made? Is it as simple as email? I guess the question is basically saying, like, after the advanced purchase decision has been made by the customer, is that enough or are there still more work on your end? And my frame of reference for these questions is, again, the lower frequency guest with the advanced purchase decision. Thanks.
spk19: Yes. Hi, Ben. Thank you for the question. So we do believe that as it relates to advanced commitment, the largest addressable market to really penetrate is the lower frequency destination guests. And it is a large and attractive market. They are low frequency destination guests. Because they're destination guests, they do tend to spend on ancillary businesses such as F&B, rentals, ski school. When we think about this coming season, I'd say overall, we are in a very good position in that we have over 2.3 million guests pre-committed to come visit our resorts this season. And when you think about the value of that and the travel and leisure business of knowing 2.3 million people are pre-committed to coming and visiting, That's the benefit of the units of past sales and the dollars that we've sold, but also the ancillary attachment that naturally comes with that. Related to that, in terms of ancillary attachment, there's some natural behaviors that occur in terms of ancillary attachment, but we also have a data-driven approach to connecting with those guests in a way that's relevant to them to encourage ancillary capture. And also, pass holders receive what I would call like membership benefits with Epic Mountain Rewards with discounts on our ancillary. So as we pursue this addressable market, there's a natural spend behavior that already exists. And of course, our goal is to increase that share of wallet as they come to our resorts.
spk08: Okay, that makes sense. So it's like almost two-pronged. It's increase the penetration of the existing lower frequency, part one, and then part two, increase the deeper into the TAM of the potential lower frequency guest.
spk19: Yes, and utilize our data to increase our capture.
spk08: Yes. And then just one quick follow-up. Is that something, in terms of your existing lower frequency guest base, have you guys tried to take a swing at, like, quantifying, how penetrated you are relative to where you would like to be. Is that something you've done? And would you share that ever?
spk19: We're not sharing that number today, but we obviously quantify the TAM and the progress we're making on the TAM and continue to believe that there is a lot of upside potential in terms of penetrating that addressable market.
spk14: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
spk16: Thanks, Ben.
spk23: We'll take our next question from Chris Ruanka with Deutsche Bank.
spk03: Hey, good morning, everyone, and Michael, thanks for all the help over the years and best of luck. Thanks, Chris. Yeah, so the question is kind of on if you're seeing any discernible difference in, I guess, past buying behavior among your local and say, Western guests. Just trying to drill down a little bit into whether there's any noticeable impact yet from some of these economic pressures in terms of when people are buying or what kind of paths they're buying relative to what they did last year or maybe in 2019 for those that you have history with.
spk19: Thanks, Chris. You know, overall, I think the underlying dynamics I feel very good about and do not see any underlying shifts in behavior dynamics that are concerning at this point. You know, the key metric that I look at is our renewing pass holders, and our renewing pass holders continue to be strong. including and especially the first-time passengers that joined last year or were new to the program last year. To me, that really validates the resort network, the guest experience, and our investments that we're making into that experience. We are seeing both local and destination grew versus prior year, which I do feel very good about in terms of Yeah, seeing growth in both of those, especially after a really strong growth year last year, to have growth on top of that is a pretty incredible accomplishment. I think what's happening in terms of our passholder mix is the progress that we're making on penetrating that destination addressable market with Epic DayPass. And that is a product that's designed very specifically to attract and penetrate into that addressable market. And that is, so it's very good news that we're making progress there on Epic Day Pass. And we think that that's a really valuable guest. And so in terms of our overall pass mix, that's probably the biggest shift that we've had is the introduction of Epic Day Pass and making progress against that market that, you know, prior to launching Epic Day Pass, we really would not have um, seen a ton of success with that addressable market because they were never going to come into an Epic or an Epic local task given the high frequency nature of those products.
spk03: Okay. Uh, super helpful. And just as a followup, I, I know you mentioned you're not completely done with, with hiring yet for the full season, but, uh, you know, any, any surprises positive or negative as you're going through that process in terms of cost or availability and then anything new on the longer term, um, employee housing projects or initiatives?
spk19: Yeah, I'm really pleased with where we are on recruiting, retention, talent overall. Our investments in the employee experience, we're seeing significant improvements versus where we were last year. Our hiring is ahead of schedule. We have significantly higher levels overall in staff than we did last year. And as I mentioned, hiring is still ongoing. It's a top priority for our mountain resort teams. They are still hiring for some specific roles. And, you know, we'll see them continuing to hire through the season as staffing needs occur through the season. You know, I feel very good that we're on track to have the staff that we need for full operations of lift and mountain terrain, normal operations of some of the ancillary businesses that I shared earlier. I have noted that one of the biggest challenges to getting fully staffed is affordable housing. We as a company are committed to investing in affordable housing. We have increased our affordable housing options for employees versus last year. And this has been and continues to be a challenge in our mountain communities. So there's ongoing work that we need to do to make progress on this. and continue to partner with our community so that they also make it a priority.
spk04: Okay. Very good. Thanks, everyone.
spk23: Thanks, Chris. We'll take our next question from Laurent Vasileski with BMP Paribus Exane.
spk24: Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my question.
spk25: I wanted to follow up on Ben's question with regards to ancillary revenue. Michael, should we assume that ancillary spend per visit gets back to pre-COVID levels? What's actually embedded in guidance, or are you anticipating, based on your commentary about economic uncertainty, that it might not come back to the pre-pandemic levels?
spk06: Thanks, Lauren. On ancillary, we look at this at a much more granular level in terms of you know, by resort and, you know, whether those guests are destination or local. And so I think one important thing to keep in mind relative to pre-COVID levels in particular is that the resort mix has shifted actually, right, as we incorporated peak resorts and as our eastern resorts grow. um the the yield at those resorts is actually lower as you would imagine than at our destination resorts and so there's going to be a mix shift uh component to that um when you look at you know historical financials over time uh you know from this space going forward certainly our goal is to increase attachment over time um you know that that uh that's certainly one of our goals and um And, you know, every year we look at that as we did this year in terms of guidance of what attachment we think we'll be able to achieve. And certainly, as Kirsten mentioned, adding more destination guests into our PASS program should over time be helpful relative to that.
spk19: And, Loren, I would just build on that to also note that our guidance assumes that the current economic conditions continue and if there was a significant change that could impact our outlook.
spk25: Okay, very helpful. And Kirsten, it's great to hear about the smartphone initiative. Are there any learnings or are there any other initiatives that we should contemplate, maybe not for this year, but maybe going forward that could maybe further elevate the consumer experience? And then one, sorry, one housekeeping question, Michael, I didn't see this in the in the press release, but should we still anticipate $175 million investment in employee wages, or was that up since that announcement earlier this spring?
spk06: So I'll take that one. No, the $175 million investment in wages was incorporated into our guidance in September that we reaffirmed, and so we are on track with that.
spk19: And with regards to your question about the guest experience, we are very excited about mobile pass and mobile lift tickets. That is actually being tested this season for a rollout to our guests next season. And we have not announced any other innovations at this point that I'm discussing, but I will tell you that we're constantly focused on every aspect of the guest experience and where can we make investments or innovate in order to make that better.
spk16: Very helpful. Thank you very much. Best of luck. Thank you.
spk23: We'll take our next question from Jess Stantiel with Stiefel.
spk02: Hey, good morning, everyone. Let me start by echoing some of my peer sentiment and say, thank you, Michael, for all your help over these years and best of luck on your next venture. You know, just starting off here, I wanted to hone back in on some of the lodging bookings color. Kirsten, you talked to bookings pacing in line with pre-COVID levels. If memory serves that this time last year you were trending more ahead versus pre-COVID, you know, is that called deceleration? Is that more a function of some of the pent-up demand? that we saw last season. I do recall you did talk to tough Rev Park comps on the last earnings call. Is there anything in here more on the macro? Thanks.
spk19: Yeah. Hi, Jeff. I think we did see some different dynamics last year with COVID. There was a lot of pent-up demand for travel and people getting back to having experiences. And so, you know, there were some dynamics that we saw where, you know, Decisions and bookings were made very early and much earlier than typical. There was a lot of enthusiasm and pent-up demand. So I think last year there were just some unique dynamics as people got back out doing things. And at least what we're seeing right now in our indicators is returning more to a pattern that we would have seen pre-COVID.
spk02: Okay, that makes sense. Thank you, Kirsten. And then, you know, for my follow-up, moving to call it the epic path tiering strategy, now that the selling season is has wrapped up and you've been able to parse through some of the data. Any thoughts on potentially continuing to introduce new pricing tiers in order to continue to penetrate that more lower frequency destination, currently window ticket skier? And apologies for potentially front-running the investor day here, but any thoughts there would be awesome.
spk19: That's okay. We are always looking at that. We're always looking at the addressable market? And what do we think are the barriers among that addressable market? And does our product and pricing portfolio address those barriers in order to convert them into an advanced commitment? So we're always assessing that. And last year, we created a new tier within Epic DayPass that was specifically targeted to guests in our local and regional resorts. It's restricted to only 22 resorts, resorts like Mount Sunapee or Afton Alps. And that product was designed and priced in such a way to convert those guests into advanced commitment. We still think that there's more potential there to grow that particular product. And we're always looking at what are the other ways to address the barriers to convert into advanced commitment, primarily because advanced commitment, we believe, is just so fundamental to the stability of our company, but also to lifetime value and long-term growth and loyalty.
spk15: Great. Very helpful. Thank you both.
spk16: Thanks, Steph.
spk23: We'll take our next question from Gregory Miller with Truist Securities.
spk05: Good morning. I have one question on behalf of my colleague, Patrick Scholes, and this relates to the booking pace. Could you discuss how ADR is tracking for this coming winter?
spk19: You know, I think we feel good about where ADR is in addition to how we feel about occupancy. And really the main kind of unique dynamic that we're seeing is what we called out and noted, which is some indications of a potential shift in behavior between December and January through April, but otherwise feeling good about the way ADR and occupancy is tracking.
spk13: Thank you very much.
spk16: Thank you.
spk23: We'll take our last question from David Katz with Jefferies.
spk26: Good morning. Michael, thanks for everything and all the best. I wanted to just focus on mountain margins, if I may. You know, with a lot of the ins and outs and a lot of the discussion around labor costs, et cetera, can you give us a little bit of kind of long-term aspirational margin levels or kind of a new normal margin, given everything we've gone through and everything you've done?
spk19: Well, I think that, you know, we, as I, To comment on long-term, we are very focused on margin, and we are constantly looking for ways to improve margin. Obviously, this year, we had a significant investment in our employees, and we are constantly looking at, one, cost discipline, and two, efficiencies. to continue to improve the margin and offset any investments that we make in the future. So while I can't commit to a specific margin at this point, and maybe we can talk more about that at the investor conference and where we think we're headed as a company, what I would say is that we're very focused on it and very focused on cost discipline and efficiency.
spk06: Yeah. And maybe just fair enough to build on that. I think the, um, You know, I think, you know, with the employee investment that Kirsten talked about, right, in our guidance, we're guiding to 31% EBITDA margins, which, of course, you know, we've built up over time. And, you know, the fundamentals of our business model, right, result in very strong flow through from revenue growth and very strong free cash flow conversion. And to Kirsten's point, you know, I think the fact that we were able to invest as much as we are investing and continue to drive margins in the business and, you know, really setting that foundation up for the strength of our free cash flow, as Kirsten said, is something that we have been focused on and, yeah, confident that we'll continue to focus on. I appreciate that.
spk26: And as my follow-up, I was hoping we could spend a minute or two on Andermatt and sort of a broader view about Europe. And again, I might be trying to front run your analyst meeting, but I'd love to get more of a sense for your vision for that property and whether we should look at this as one step in a journey and building more of a European presence.
spk19: Yeah, thank you for the question. We are incredibly excited about Andermont. It is already an amazing mountain resort with strong investment in the base area to attract a high-end European skier. And we're excited to continue to invest in that. We believe that this is the perfect sort of first step for us in Europe. to come in with Andermatt to listen, to learn, to build our reputation, and that there is significant opportunity for Andermatt to grow its share of the luxury European skier market. Longer term, as we've shared at our investor conferences, the addressable market in Europe is almost three times the size of North America. And we believe that that is a big opportunity for us for growth. And we have not an easy market to penetrate. So a long-term strategy to build our experience, our credibility, and hopefully over time build a network of resorts that can achieve value creation for our shareholders.
spk11: Okay, perfect. Thank you.
spk23: Thank you. This concludes the Q&A portion of today's call. I would now like to turn the call back over to Kirsten Lynch for closing remarks.
spk19: Thank you, Operator. This concludes our fiscal 2023 first quarter earnings call. Thank you to everyone who joined us today. Please feel free to reach out to me or Michael directly should you have any further questions. Thank you for your time this morning, and goodbye.
spk23: This concludes today's Vail Resorts Fiscal First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call and Webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day.
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