Vail Resorts Unveils $100 Million Efficiency Plan Amid Global Expansion and Growth

Friday, September 27, 2024

After a decade of rapid growth, Vail Resorts, the world’s largest mountain resort operator, has revealed a two-year plan aimed at positioning the company for future expansion and global success.

Over the past 10 years, Vail Resorts has significantly grown its portfolio from 10 to 42 owned and operated mountain resorts across four countries, more than doubling its workforce in the process. This expansion allowed the company to leverage synergies in corporate functions and technology while investing over $2 billion in guest and employee experiences and industry-leading innovations. Now, with 42 mountain resorts, a unified enterprise technology system, and advanced data analytics, Vail Resorts is uniquely positioned to drive resource efficiency on a large scale.

The new two-year Resource Efficiency Transformation Plan aims to enhance operational effectiveness and maximize scale advantages as the company continues to grow. Through streamlined operations, global shared services, and optimized workforce management, Vail Resorts anticipates achieving $100 million in annualized cost savings by the end of its 2026 fiscal year.

“We believe this is a natural progression and next step for our company, that builds upon our success and paves the way for the next phase of growth,” said Vail Resorts CEO Kirsten Lynch. “Our mission: to create an Experience of a Lifetime for our employees and our guests, galvanizes our company, as does our commitment to reinvesting for growth.”

Part of these cost savings will come from workforce reductions, affecting less than 2% of the total workforce, including 14% of corporate employees and less than 1% of operations staff. The changes in operations will focus on management and back-end support structures, with only 0.2% of frontline roles being impacted. Affected employees will be encouraged to apply for open positions across the company.

“No matter how big or small the impact of position eliminations, we do not take lightly any decision that affects our team members,” Lynch said. “Our team members are the core of our mission to create an Experience of a Lifetime, and we have tremendous gratitude for their passion and commitment to our mission, our mountains, and our guests.”

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