Guest Post: Evan Campbell - Break up Corporate Ski Monopolies
“This place had a heartbeat in its day.
Vail bought the mountains, and nothing was the same”
-Noah Kahan
Last week, New Hampshire opened an investigation into Vail Resort’s after the company attempted to implement a 3.2% “blended” sales tax on New Hampshire skiers who purchased any one of their “Epic Passes.” Days later, Vail seemingly relented, and announced a tax-free season pass option that will be available to Granite Staters.
On the surface this looks like a good deal. New Hampshire skiers will have access to Vail’s season passes, and they won’t have to pay sales tax on it. However, this deal misleads and hurts Granite Staters while doing nothing to address the negative consequences that Vail’s consolidation of the ski industry will continue to have on New Hampshire’s economy and culture.
The tax-free options offered by Vail do not simply remove the 3.2% tax for New Hampshire residents. Instead, they drastically change the product at the expense of Granite Staters.
Opting out of the $21 sales tax requires limiting the passholders access from the 21 resorts currently covered under the Northeast Value Pass, including Stowe and Mount Snow in neighboring Vermont, to just the four resorts located in New Hampshire. The $662 base price remains the same, despite the drastic reduction in resort access.
In other words, if you want to access all 21 resorts then you still have to pay the sales tax, and if you want to limit your access to just New Hampshire resorts then you still have to pay the full price. Either way you lose.
This is a good deal for Vail, and a bad deal for New Hampshire.
This is not just about sales tax. This deal does nothing to stop Vail’s monopolistic behavior, and Granite State skiers will only suffer in the long run unless real action is taken to limit Vail’s market power.
Vail will of course disagree with what I am saying. In their statement, Vail claimed that “even with access limited to our four New Hampshire resorts, the Northeast Value Pass at $662 provides incredible value and costs significantly less than other multi-resort season passes in New Hampshire.”
This is true. Vail’s business model relies on marketing relatively cheap season passes to an ever-growing network of resorts, while inflating day-pass prices to increase the perceived value of their season passes. This prices out independently owned resorts that can't compete with Vail’s season pass network, allowing Vail to buy them out when they go under. As competition decreases, Vail will increase their market power and be able to charge whatever they want.
These illegal practices not only increase the price skiers will pay, but will fundamentally ruin the culture and quality of skiing in New Hampshire. For one thing, the day-lift passes that I grew up on are intentionally and prohibitively more expensive, meaning skiing is no longer an option for many families who could spend a weekend at the slopes but couldn’t justify buying a season pass.
The ability to have unlimited access to a growing network of resorts has also created overcrowding and increased wait times on ski lifts. If New Hampshire skiers want to get their money’s worth on their undiscounted New Hampshire-only passes, you can expect that the crowds at Vail’s New Hampshire resorts will only get worse. And if the past is prologue, any local economic benefits due to the increased crowds will be diminished as Vail vertically consolidates ownership of the hotels and restaurants surrounding their resorts. This will take money out of New Hampshire and give it to an out-of-state corporation.
The people we elect should not capitulate to monopolies while framing it as a win for New Hampshire. From ski resorts to Big Tech, Carleigh Beriont understands the negative implications monopolies have on the pocketbooks and culture of New Hampshire, and will fight in Congress to break them up.
