Community deals with fallout from ski patrol strike
Jan 14, 2025
As Park City Mountain recovers from the ski patrol strike, local businesses continue to struggle with the fallout that left skiers across the country wary of Park City. On Tuesday, the mountain opened at 60% of capacity with 206 trails and 80% of lifts available, around twice of what was available when the strike ended five days prior with the patrol winning most of the union’s requests.Business operators said their battle has just begun. “The impact was huge,” said John Zenes, owner of the car service company Park City Passport. “The bookings we would normally see (the week of Jan 6-12) are down by almost 50%, and I believe it is a direct effect of this strike.” John Zenes has been the owner and operator of Park City Passport for over 10 years. Credit: Photo courtesy of John ZenesHe said his company experienced significant cancellations in the days following the strike’s beginning on Dec. 27. “This will have a long-term effect. There are people who have said they would never visit a Vail Resort again,” he said. “I think Vail has played this off as a minimal problem, that they’re resolving it and that this was a ski lift specific issue, or a safety on the hill issue, which it absolutely was, but the direct effect to the rest of the industry has been great,” said Zenes. “We appreciate these guests as much as Vail does. They’re the lifeline of our business, our community and Park City. These aren’t just Vail guests. They’re our guests, too.” During the strike, as the holiday crowds converged, Park City Mountain’s open terrain ranged from 13% to 23%, while a 30-year low in snowfall to date on Christmas Day broke with several storms that dropped around 4 feet of snow during the strike, complicating the resort’s ability to open terrain with a skeleton crew of substitute patrollers. Many guests were furious with the resulting long lines, little of the mountain open and safety concerns. Local businesses operators said they dealt with the fallout.“Guests during the holiday period were unusually disgruntled. The compounding effects of not an excellent experience on the mountain carried through to the rest of their vacation and guests were demanding full refunds. I had personally three guests threaten lawyers for very small issues,” said Heleena Sideris, general manager of Park City Lodging. “We’ve spent quite a bit of time and resources just managing and allaying fears of guests once it was on the national news.” Sideris said she handled many concerns of guests about their safety on the hill on Jan. 6, as news of the strike had moved across widely read platforms including CNBC, The New York Times, and NBC. “What would have been really helpful is if Vail had provided some of those talking points for businesses so that we could have had a cohesive strategy and approach for our messaging to allay those safety concerns,” said Sideris. “I had reports from a long-time owner indicating that they are feeling that Vail has no regard for our community, the corporate environment that they’ve brought in.” Sideris said she had two guests who paid in full and never arrived for their stay because of the strike, and one home buyer who went back on his purchase of a property due to his experience in town that week. Given Park City Lodging’s cancellation policy, many guests hoping to forgo their Park City plans were not able to refund or cancel their stay with such short notice. Those who did not show paid for their stay in full. Sideris shared an email from a guest who said, “With the disaster, with the strike and the mountain only being open 20% to 30% and the overall lack of transparency from Vail, I bailed on Park City and went to Breckenridge instead. Last minute, large ski-in and ski-out condo on the mountain was the same price as my three day pass Deer Valley for my family, which would have been my only option in Park City to enjoy my trip and not wait in huge lines.” “These moments of progress don’t happen in a vacuum,” Sideris said, “and a lot of us that have been affected are the small businesses that support our town, and we’re already seeing guests that are saying they’re not interested in rebooking for next year. The sentiment is clearly not looking good for long-term consumer confidence.” “I hate to say it, but I won’t ever be back after this experience,” another guest said in an email to Sideris. “I do think that we need to remember that Vail’s team here is an advocate for our community. There’s an opportunity for Vail to take this as an opportunity to be more of a community partner with their local mountain safety and corporate teams here,” said Sideris. “It reminded me of our COVID response in 2020. It felt like that level of emergency,” she said. Park City Lodging has about 240 properties that serviced over 1,000 guests during the holiday period.Owners of Abode Luxury Rentals also said their guests were stressed following their on-mountain experiences. While guests were not able to cancel their rentals on short notice because of the strike, Rob Alday, co-owner of Abode and former president of the Park City Lodging Association, said they experienced a significant drop in bookings in the weeks following Dec. 27.“From Dec. 29 through Jan. 5, there was an 82% drop in bookings for the rest of January compared to the year before,” he said. “The lasting implications aren’t something that are going to just go away.” Credit: Graph courtesy of Visit Park City“I think people have more trepidation about booking in Park City,” he added. “Even now with the strike ended, people still have those social media photographs or videos in their head and they will wait to come back,” said Rob. Rachel Alday is a co-owner of Abode Luxury Rentals and a member of the Vacation Rental Managers Association. While they aren’t handling the risk of cancelation given their policies in place, said that their concern is on the fallout from the level of discontent experienced by guests.The holiday crowds have dissipated until the next holiday weekend, terrain opened since the strike ended and even fresh snow last weekend. Still, the bad taste lingers.“What is Vail going to do to resolve or make up for their negative publicity?” Rachel Alday asked. “People still did have a good time,” Rob Alday said. “They went out on Main Street, enjoyed Woodward, and booked other activities. But when they have a bad experience on the mountain, they bring that into the home.” Woodward Park City said they experienced a similar holiday period to last year. “We definitely saw some really good visitation, both from our local membership, our local guests, and the destination visitors as well,” said Gar Trayner, general manager at Woodward. “We have some pretty good horsepower on our lift and we can distribute people onto the mountain fairly quickly and then keep people on a pretty nice cadence. With our blend of people utilizing the indoor hub, tubing and the mountain itself it disperses crowds really well.” Deer Valley, with over 50% of its terrain open and ski patrol at work, avoided Park City Mountain’s pain, and even opened two new lifts out of the East Village. “People that got so frustrated spent a lot more time on Main Street,” said John Kenworthy, owner of Flanagan’s on Main. “We (the restaurants) were all working to just try and keep the guests’ spirits up. We did a whole lot of free desserts and other things to quell that anger.” Flanagan’s on Main owner John Kenworthy said restaurants “did a whole lot of free desserts and other things to quell that anger” of vacationing skiers frustrated with long lines and little terrain open on Park City Mountain during the holidays while the ski patrol union was on strike. Credit: Clayton Steward/Park Record“The stories I was hearing were unbelievable,” he added. “It was devastating for all of us to watch this, but the business didn’t hurt any of us because everyone was so upset, they were crying in their beers.”The Park City Chamber/Tourism Bureau projections for January show a significant drop in lodging occupancy the weekend of Jan. 10 through 12, compared to the same period in 2024, matching many reports from businesses of booking losses in the days immediately following the strike.Looking forward, chamber officials did not predict a long-term loss of occupancy moving into Sundance Film Festival and beyond.“Things are moving forward, which is nice,” said Dan Howard, vice president of communications. “We aren’t going to know the total impact of what just happened in the past 12 days for a while, but at least we know, in terms of advanced bookings, it didn’t hurt us in the long run, which is so important.”The strike’s impact affected Vail Resorts’ stock price in the short term, as well. MTN shares have been trending downward since January 2022, but the stock took a 6% hit after New Year’s Day and as news of the strike spread across the country. The stock has slowly recovered, trending at $183.84 on Tuesday afternoon.Park City Mountain and Vail Resorts are not the only ones taking a hit to their reputation, the Aldays said. “It does impact not only, you know, the guest, but it also impacts the image of Park City and the people that live and work here, because they have to deal with people that are angry about this experience that they chose to invest in, and they’re not getting what they really paid for,” said Rob Alday.“How do we get back to where we were? And I don’t think we need to try and get back to old Park City before we had Vail. Just how do we get back to when we could all get along a little bit better?” Rachel Alday said.The post Community deals with fallout from ski patrol strike appeared first on Park Record.
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