Photo: Unsplash / Rich Martello
The National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) is reporting that the 2024-2025 winter in the United States was the second-busiest the nation has ever seen. With 61.5 million skier visits (and some resorts still open for spring season), the preliminary numbers reported on Monday are second to the post-COVID 2022-2023 season, which the NSAA noted was “widely considered an anomaly” as global travel made a strong rebound coming out of the pandemic.
Analyzing those visitation numbers, the NSAA pointed out that season pass holders accounted for almost half of those 61.5 million visits (49 percent), and one factor making a major contribution to the industry’s growth is that more people are visiting small and medium-sized ski areas.
Another notable data point in the report concerned capital reinvestment within ski areas. Lift tickets have undoubtedly sky-rocketed in recent years and the public is often vocal about the sport feeling less and less accessible to everyday people. The method seems to be working for the industry, though, if more and more people are showing up. And where does all that money go?
It turns out a fair portion is going right back into upgrading the resorts themselves. Over the past five seasons, an average of $20.37 of every lift ticket sale has gone back into improving resorts. This includes building new lifts, for example. That number went up slightly to $21.11 per skier in 2024-2025. With an average price of $75 per lift ticket, that means 28 percent of every ticket going right back into each ski area’s infrastructure.
“Several years ago, we set an ambitious goal of reaching a three-year rolling average of 60 million skier visits. We’ve now surpassed that benchmark for four consecutive seasons,” said NSAA President and CEO Michael Reitzell. “While weather will always be unpredictable, this year was less volatile overall, and nearly every region saw solid snowfall.”
“The 2024-25 season may come to represent a new baseline for the industry. Even if ‘normal’ continues to evolve, this season gives us a strong point of reference for what steady, healthy growth looks like,” said Reitzell.
