Trends Q: How old are season passholders at ski resorts in the United States?

Last week we answered an interesting age-related conundrum. Today we’re at it again. The question we had was simple but important: how old are season passholders at ski resorts in the U.S.? I think we can all guess the trend, but what are the specifics? Here’s what we found.

The Goods
To find our answer we took passholders from 20 different season/resort combinations for the last couple years. In total, we looked at over 250,000 season passholders whose age was also known, grouped them by age and plotted them on the chart below. The x-axis represents passholder age and the y-axis represents the percentage of total pass volume held by that specific age.

As you’d expect, the curve peaks in the middle and tapers at the ends, but the two dips are worth a closer look. The first begins at 23 years of age, then bottoms out at 26 before peaking again at 30. Another trough starts at 30, hits its lowest point at 37 and then peaks again at 44 before beginning a long, steady decline with age.

What This Means
The troughs may be best described with one word: life. College, new jobs, and kids all likely contribute to these dips. As children get older and the parents’ incomes grow with their careers, skiing becomes a more feasible activity making season passes a more likely purchase.

After 44, the reality of skiing being a physical activity slowly comes into play. While some skiers make it into their 90’s, aging bodies slowly pull the level of participation lower and lower until a season pass no longer makes sense. Now, this is volume, but how active are passholders at each of these ages? Great question. So great, in fact, we’ll answer that in two weeks.

We’ll Be Right Back…
Every week, without fail, we post a new, resort marketing insight like this one. Don’t want to miss the next round? You can either refresh the site every 10 minutes or stick your email below and we’ll send you an alert the moment it drops.