Trends Q: Do younger skiers buy their season passes in spring or do they wait until fall?

As we find ourselves in the lull between spring pass sales and the forthcoming pre-winter wave, we decided to answer a few questions on this ever-important topic. The first was simply whether younger skiers buy their passes in the spring or wait until the fall. A straightforward question, here’s what we found.

The Goods
To find our answer we looked at season pass data from 15 resorts leading up to the 2013/14 season. We then grouped pass sales by the month they occurred and found the average age for each group. Here’s how it looks:

It doesn’t take more than a second to see the answer to our question: on average, the age of pass purchasers drops as the season approaches. From an average of 39.32 years old in April, the age of those that bought in December averaged out to 29.29: A difference of almost exactly a decade.

What This Means
There are probably a few factors at play here. The younger crowd may be more transient, unsure of where they’ll be living come come fall. No kids, school schedules, no mortgage, maybe a less-secure job, or perhaps just a tendency to not plan more than a few months ahead could all impact their decisions.

Whatever the case, the overall trend we see above showed up at nearly every resort we looked at: the average age of people who buy their season passes in spring is much higher than those who buy in fall. Food for thought.

More Insights Next Week
We post a fresh resort marketing insight each week. We call it The Stash. Stick your email below and we’ll alert you when the next one drops.