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Camelback GM on “The Storm Skiing Podcast”


rgrwilco

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24 minutes ago, rgrwilco said:

If you want a dumpster fire of a listen, and want to know why camelback sucks so much, here ya go. The GM doesn’t even know his own mountain’s policies. I’m pretty sure he ski blades in jeans. 
 

https://www.stormskiing.com/p/podcast-162-camelback-managing-director

can you just give me a quick run down. i dont have an hour and a half to listen to this. 

and he prob does

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-Just talks in circles about waterparks. 
-had no idea camelback charged 75 dollars to replace a lost season pass.

-repeatedly told the host of the podcast that the host knows more about lifts/infrastructure at camelback than he did.

 

not a good look for a GM. I listen to the podcast on long car rides, and every other GM from any ski area knows the ins and outs of their operation. I don't know if I’ll finish this one. 

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21 minutes ago, GrilledSteezeSandwich said:

What brings in the most profit is first priority for any business.  I don’t think the skiing aspect of most ski resort is very profitable.  Food and beverage, hotels and water parks seem way more profitable. 

Skiing's definitely not the profit center, but the motivator to bring people to the mountain where they've got (most) people captive in terms of food and beverage sales, where the real margins can be made.   Skiing is definitely a loss leader for the mountains, but tubing on the other hand...

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This is true. I wonder what the plans for blue will be another version of camelback or if blue remains the "ski area" of the two.

The guy did say they have 42 lanes of tubing. That must print money faster than the Fed.

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4 hours ago, indiggio said:

Skiing's definitely not the profit center, but the motivator to bring people to the mountain where they've got (most) people captive in terms of food and beverage sales, where the real margins can be made.   Skiing is definitely a loss leader for the mountains, but tubing on the other hand...

right.  F&B wont make money if there is no skiing or tubing.  

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9 hours ago, rgrwilco said:

This is true. I wonder what the plans for blue will be another version of camelback or if blue remains the "ski area" of the two.

The guy did say they have 42 lanes of tubing. That must print money faster than the Fed.

Tubing is open and busy all midweek.  Always wondered why Blue leaves that money on the table.

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23 minutes ago, EdBacon said:

They pulled all the moveable snowguns off the mountain. Weren't making snow last night. Looks like they are done making snow for the year.

I got that vibe today too.  Although they claim April 7th on that pod.  We'll see.

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I listened to it last night. I never really heard anything too groundbreaking in the podcast. Just pretty standard executive talk. He kept saying that their mission statement was "Create guests for life", which makes sense. It's all about the experience and the resort and making you feel like you're on vacation there. Day tripping skiers are not their target audience. 

One of the really interesting things I got from it is that KSL is split in two entities which I did not know. KSL Capital, which owns a stake in Alterra, and KSL Resorts which I believe owns the actual operations. KSL Resorts has the mandate to diversify their properties, which is where Blue and Camel come in. So I find it unlikely that they would transfer ownership to the other KSL's subsidiary. To me this means that unless strategy changes, we won't get unlimited Blue on an Ikon Pass any time soon.

More interesting things I took away from the podcast 

1. Black Bear 6 cost something like $14 million dollars. Gives me an idea of how much lifts cost. They are also planning on adding a big video board to that chair at the bottom. 

2. Cameltop has been closed for quite a while. They are planning on utilizing it for corporate events. Seems like corporate events are a huge part of what they are going after. He mentioned the Cintas uniform company having an outing where they worked in the conference rooms all day and then went snow tubing at night. I would bet expense accounts got a workout at the bar as well. 

3. Paid parking is here to stay. When pressed on it, he talked about the fact that they have no plans to reconsider that, and referenced the size of the property and the high cost it takes to operate. 

 

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i was told by some random person that im sure has a cousin who has a friend that knows somebody who is friends with the guy that runs the french fryer in the valley, and said that the MSE was 13 mil, so that might be somewhat accurate.  

 

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