Alpine skiing too expensive?

The trees at the top of Mont-Orford look like giant cauliflowers because the crusty snow covers their branches. Winter is well established despite the warm weather of the holidays.

The mountain has received more than a meter of snow in the last ten days and the cannons are still spewing flakes to ensure a solid base to cover all the slopes.

We are off to an excellent start to the season, agrees, with a smile, Simon Blouin, general director of the Mont-Orford Ski and Golf Corporation. We had a nice mix of cold to make snow and good falls. Last Saturday, we almost had no more space in our parking lots because there were so many skiers.

This start of the season acts as a balm after the difficult season of winter 2024, marked by significant mild spells during the holiday and spring break periods, two key periods financially for the resorts.

Shorter winters and climate change are forcing resorts to invest colossal sums to modernize their equipment. Prices have exploded since the pandemic.

Machinery like tractors that we bought five years ago cost double, the same goes for parts for ski lift maintenance, describes Simon Blouin. If you add the price of food in our restaurants, our workforce, everything has increased by about 40% in the last five years.

We have invested approximately four million dollars in the last four years to be more efficient in our snowmaking and to reduce our operating costs, adds the general manager. From 2017 to 2027, $40 million will have been invested. As a result, our subscriber count has increased by 40% since 2017.

Subscribers who have to pay more and more expensive tickets, even if Mont-Orford and most stations try to limit the increase at the rate of inflation.

However, day tickets, especially on weekends, are expensive. - Sports did the exercise for a family of two adults, a teenager and a child by targeting six stations of different sizes. Prices range between $190 and $610.

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Prices which, however, would not reflect the overall picture of the situation, according to Josée Cusson, director of communications and marketing for the Association of Quebec Ski Resorts.

If we arrive at the ticket office the same morning, then we have a perfect day, it is certain that we will pay the regular rate which is much more expensive than if we had done our research in advance, explains- she said. When you plan, there are ways to save.

Josée Cusson specifies that the average price of an adult ski ticket in Quebec is $53.

The industry wants to make sport democratic and is really making efforts to educate families about the different options for saving and enjoying our Quebec winters, explains Ms. Cusson. I would say that skiing is more accessible than before. Over the last five years, the number of skiing and snowboarding enthusiasts in Quebec has increased to 1.6 million.

Shift towards subscriptions

To save money, the Association of Quebec Ski Resorts recommends purchasing tickets online, multi-visit tickets and also sells a subscription which offers discounts, regardless of the resort visited.

Season subscriptions, however, remain the most effective way to reduce the cost per visit, but you still need to have the money to purchase them.

Michel Archambault, professor emeritus and founder of the Chair of Tourism at UQAM, has analyzed the ski industry in Quebec annually over the past 35 years. He notes a significant change in consumption habits.

Thirty-five years ago, about 25% of visits to ski resorts were through subscriptions, he says. Today, the proportion is 60%. People understood that by subscribing during pre-sales, it was possible to lower the cost of the visit to a fraction of the price of a ticket purchased on the day.

Subscriptions, purchased before the season, also allow stations to ensure minimum income before the start of the season and to protect themselves in the event of a difficult weather season.

Every year, you have a certain number of days or evenings during which stations must close due to wind, rain or ice, says Michel Archambault. Overall, if resorts close six or seven days per winter, that represents something like $40 million less in the province’s ski economy.

At Mont-Morford, on Saturdays, nearly 70% of visits are made by skiers who have subscriptions.

Subscribers provide us with stable revenues and help us with our budget while ticket sales will fluctuate a lot depending on weather conditions, explains its general manager. It is with ticketing that we will make profits which will allow us to invest the following year. Both types of customers are super important.

The Corporation du golf et ski Mont-Orford is a non-profit organization. The resort is profitable, like approximately 80% of ski resorts in the province, regardless of the business model.

It is the smallest resorts that are weakened because they do not have the capital to invest to counter, in particular, climate change, the biggest challenge for ski resorts. Within five years, I estimate that Quebec stations will have to invest close to half a billion dollars to update their facilities.

There are resorts that are suffering and others that are doing better because they diversify their activities during the four seasons, which allows them to have income on an annual basis and to be able to keep their workforce.

Even in winter, resorts must innovate. At Mont-Orford, for example, the resort relies on alpine hiking trails that allow skiers to ski uphill with the sweat of their brow and then descend on the slopes.

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There are approximately 60,000 days of alpine hiking per year here in the mountains, which is still enormous, and it’s really part of our business model, says Simon Blouin. The fact that the sport is practiced without ski lifts increases the time slots for practice.

In comparison, the resort has around 230,000 alpine ski visits on average per year.

When we compare ourselves…

Subscriptions or not, alpine skiing will never be an inexpensive sport, if on top of that you have to add the cost of the equipment.

Of course, there is a cost, but I like to calculate it by the hour, answers Simon Blouin. When people decide to buy a subscription, they spend the whole winter in the mountains, full days. Yes, an $80 ticket may seem expensive, but it’s for the whole day, compared to a trip to the cinema which only lasts two hours.

When we compare ourselves, we console ourselves, Michel Archambault advances. Skiing in Quebec is about three times cheaper than in the United States and one and a half times cheaper than in Ontario. I have children who played hockey and I would say that skiing may be less expensive than hockey itself.

The Association of Quebec Ski Resorts would also like Hydro-Québec to show flexibility in its electricity rates, in order to help the ski industry control its expenses.