Vail Resorts' fiscal 2026 results reveal a ski industry at a tipping point, where the ability to house workers may determine the success of resorts more than pass sales or weather conditions. The company reported a 12% decline in pass product units sold for the upcoming North American season through September 18, with pass sales dollars down 6%. Skier visits for the fiscal year fell 13.4% to 15.3 million, and net income attributable to the company dropped to $147.5 million from $280 million a year earlier. These figures arrive as Vail faces an activist proxy contest from Oasis Management, a Hong Kong hedge fund that has nominated four director candidates and increased its stake to 7.4%.
Daniel Kaufman, founder of Kaufman & Company and an investor in mountain resort and workforce housing development, argues that the industry's growth narrative has shifted from selling more passes to ensuring mountain towns remain livable for the workers who operate them. "A pass is a promise that the mountain will be open, staffed and worth the drive," Kaufman said. "You can argue about weather and pricing all day, but the thing no corporate office can fix from a distance is whether the lift operator, the patroller and the line cook can afford to live near the base. That is where the value of a resort actually sits, and it does not show up in the pass count until it is too late."
The proxy contest, covered by local press in Park City, has raised the possibility that individual resorts could eventually change hands. Kaufman warns that any new owner must prioritize housing before lifts or lodges. "If mountains start moving from one owner to another, the buyers who do well will be the ones who treat employee housing as part of the lift system, not as an amenity," he said. "We look at mountain towns the way we look at any housing market, by the data: supply, wages, and how far a worker drives to the job. A resort that gets those right does not need a record-breaking year to make money."
Kaufman & Company, through its operating company DEK Builds, is an integrated design, build, development, and investment firm focused on custom homes, mountain resorts, hotels, and commercial construction. Its data platform, LandBriefing, recently added Mountain Watch, which tracks land and housing fundamentals in mountain resort and gateway towns. Oldivai, an aligned partner, develops workforce housing. Kaufman & Company is a permanent capital holding company with over $2 billion in project value and more than 10,000 housing units across 25 years.
The implications for the ski industry are significant. As pass sales slump and investor pressure mounts, resorts that fail to address workforce housing may struggle to operate effectively, leading to service cuts and further declines. For readers in mountain communities, this could mean changes in local employment and housing markets. For the broader industry, it signals a need to integrate housing into core business strategy, not as a peripheral concern. The outcome of Vail's proxy fight and the potential sale of resorts could set a precedent for how the industry values and invests in the people who make skiing possible.
