Broomfield, CO – Vail Resorts, Inc., which owns and operates four ski resorts in Colorado and one straddling the California/Nevada border at Lake Tahoe, today reported certain ski season metrics for the current ski season through this past Sunday that indicate a 4.6% increase in lift ticket revenue and a 2.3% uptick in skier visits over the previous season.n”We are very pleased to see continued improvement, as expected, in our ski season to date metrics including a strengthening of our destination visitation and guest spending patterns, especially during this year’s spring break and Easter holiday periods,” said Rob Katz, Chief Executive Officer of Vail Resorts. “The total lift ticket revenue improvement was driven by the strength of our season pass program and increase in total skier visits. We also experienced strong increases year-over-year in the company’s ski school and retail/rental revenues, which increased at a higher level than our visitation increase, providing a promising indicator for the recovery of guest spend as we head into next ski season.”

Season to date ski school revenue through April 18, 2010, for the company’s five mountain resorts — Vail Mountain, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone in Colorado, and Heavenly at Lake Tahoe — increased approximately 8.3% compared to the prior year’s numbers. Season to date retail/rental revenue through April 18, 2010, increased approximately 8.1% compared to the prior year.

“The company’s dining revenue also improved, though at a level consistent with the overall increase in visitation,” Katz added, referencing a season-to-date improvement of 2.5% over a year earlier.

Katz indicated that with the balance sheet improvements comes reward for employees.

“We have recently reinstated some of the prior year’s wage and benefit reductions, with a 2% interim wage increase for year-round employees effective April 1, 2010 and seasonal employees seeing the increase when returning for the upcoming 2010-2011 ski season, along with a partial reinstatement of the company match component of its 401(k) program, also effective April 1, 2010,” Katz said. “Last year we asked our employees to share in the burden of reducing our costs in light of the reduced revenues arising from the economic environment primarily through wage reductions and deferral of the 401(k) company match, in an effort to preserve our labor force and continue to drive the guest experience. With our business improving, we wanted to immediately begin to restore some of these reductions to our employees, with further potential restorations to be reviewed again in the upcoming fiscal year.”