June 23, 2012
ORDA Skier Visits (Update 2012)
Whiteface
| Season | Skier Visits | Revenue |
| 2004 – 2005 | 181,759 | $7,205,841 |
| 2005 – 2006 | 180,440 | $7,836,129 |
| 2006 – 2007 | 166,145 | $8,052,883 |
| 2007 – 2008 | 214,108 | $10,469,789 |
| 2008 – 2009 | 185,113 | $9,060,533 |
| 2009 – 2010 | 192,018 | $9,367,859 |
| 2010 – 2011 | 213,235 | $10,479,362 |
| 2011 – 2012 | 164,952 | $9,025,507 |
Gore Mountain
| Season | Skier Visits | Revenue |
| 2004 – 2005 | 212,703 | $6,625,483 |
| 2005 – 2006 | 207,299 | $6,524,448 |
| 2006 – 2007 | 209,353 | $6,843,002 |
| 2007 – 2008 | 238,467 | $8,411,108 |
| 2008 – 2009 | 230,791 | $8,612,670 |
| 2009 – 2010 | 218,166 | $8,410,045 |
| 2010 – 2011* | 217,032 | $8,138,846 |
| 2011 – 2012 | (not reported) | $7,085,546 |
Sources: ORDA Annual Reports
(*2010-2011 Gore numbers are estimated by ORDA)
Gore visit numbers include an estimate of 15 visits per pass holder. Whiteface visits do not include visits by Gore passholders.
I’m guessing revenue is gross profit? Does the state publish the complete financial statement?
As we discussed with Tony Lanza (and confirmed by Harv’s footnote), those skier visit numbers are guestimates. Aren’t revenue and gross profits completely different things? Why are WF’s revenues 15-20% more than Gore’s given the ski-day stats?
What is revenue?? According to those numbers it is not gross sales..
Those figures are gross revenues. Profits are what’s left after you subtract expenses. The large difference in revenue per skier visit ($37 for Gore, $49 for WF) probably reflects a different mix of full retail skiers vs discounted tickets vs season passholder visits at each mountain, and probably differences in the estimates / assumptions that go into each, for example that 15 visits per passholder assumption at Gore.
While this information is interesting, net profit figures would be more useful. I beleive both Gore and Whiteface generate annual profits of around $1 million each. And of course the economic impact to the region from the operation of the ski centers is very significant.
Jeff’s right – that’s gross revenue. I think profit is more like $500k per mountain. I’d guess Gore might have a larger percentage of passholders than Whiteface, which could lower the revenue per visit.
And with a lot of dual passholders living in the capital district, it would make sense that those passholders would hit Gore more. It's closer.
The last factor could be Whiteface’s status as a destination resort. With everything Lake Placid has to offer, and the mountain’s (IMO well-deserved) reputation as being one of the most challenging hills in the east, I wouldn’t be surprised if more people take full vacations at WF. Those multi-day tickets are cheaper than single day tix, but more per day than what passholders pay.
I think the Whiteface numbers include summer revenues, and I would think it grosses more in the summer than Gore.
Harv, you may want to put in a footnote that several of these comments are 2 years old.
That said, it’s also worth noting that Whiteface skiiers stay longer. I am sure the average ski “vacation” to Whiteface is 2 – 3 days, with lodging because it’s too far to day trip from the Capitol District.
At Gore, the typical “vacation” is one day. Either Saturday or Sunday. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but Gore is still primarily a day area for Albany, much like Belleayre is a day area for Metro NYC.
As a point of clarification, the reason that the 2010-2011 Gore numbers have an asterisk(*) – in last year’s ORDA annual report Gore skier visits also were not reported and revenue numbers where shown on a graph that wasn’t easy to determine exact numbers. The reason those numbers are estimates – Ted Blazer was speaking at a press conference and gave percent changes for Gore on both skier visits and revenue that we applied to the previous years numbers.
@Kid – I’ll let your comment (and the dates next to comments) stand as notification that this post is historical and updated yearly. We’ll probably have to do something different next year anyway with the inclusion of Belleayre.