How Liftopia’s web shop and dynamic pricing model helped largest ski resort in the Graubünden region of Switzerland grow pre-sales
Online Pre-Sales: 200K CHF → 5.3M CHF (2016-17 vs. 2017-18)
Goals & Challenges Arosa Lenzerheide, an idyllic winter sports destination with 225km of available terrain, is the largest ski resort in the Graubünden region of Switzerland. After a few seasons of varying snow conditions, and rising costs for Europeans to travel to ski in Switzerland, the lift company knew it had to try something new to grow pre-sale volume.
Heading into winter 2017/2018 season, Arosa Lenzerheide aimed to increase revenue on all tickets sold online to gain greater financial and operational predictability. Specifically, Arosa Lenzerheide had several goals:
Double ticket revenue online from 200K CHF to 400K CHF (primary goal)
In the medium term, over 50% of tickets are purchased online, in advance
Overhauling pricing strategy alone is not easy, so the lift company decided to partner with Liftopia, whose 13 years of experience in revenue management for ski areas was bound to bring results. Despite the opportunity, Arosa Lenzerheide had several concerns about moving to a new pricing strategy, such as growing total resort revenue alongside greater pre-sales, and how ticket yield would be impacted by dynamic pricing.
“We chose to partner with Liftopia because of their proven track record of increasing pre-sales for ticketing businesses in North America, and pioneering dynamic pricing now used by hundreds of ski areas. The ongoing assessment of the strategy during the season by Liftopia’s analytics team and the possibility to measure the success in real-time made them the obvious choice for a pricing partner,” said Philipp Holenstein, CEO Arosa Bergbahnen.
Solutions & Results
Pre-sold revenue grew to 5.3M CHF from 200K CHF in the 2016-17, an increase of more than 26X, vastly exceeding expectations.
25% of ticket revenue came from products that were purchased online (of offerings that were available both online and at the cash desk).
Liftopia’s experience and expertise developing dynamic pricing strategies for more than 110+ lift companies empowered Arosa Lenzerheide to drive greater pre-sales by maximizing online pricing efficiency. Since Liftopia’s pricing model has been used by hundreds of resorts, Arosa Lenzerheide had confidence it would yield the best revenue results. Throughout the season, Arosa Lenzerheide took advantage of Liftopia’s reporting and benchmarking to determine if their pricing strategy was successful and find incremental opportunity in the data.
“Since we began working with Liftopia, the results have far outpaced our expectations and created a win-win situation with our skiers,” says Christian Wyrsch, Sales Manager at Arosa Lenzerheide.
While Arosa Lenzerheide had some concerns about how a new pricing strategy would effect ETP (Effective Ticket Price), the downside was minimal. “The ETP was only slightly lower on tickets sold online” said Wyrsch. “Looking at the higher no-show-rate, the large volume, and performance comparison with the competitors, it is very likely that the tickets that were sold more than compensated for the loss because of selling at a lower price.”
Selling more tickets online also contributed to a more positive guest experience at the mountain. Almost 41% of the guests that booked online reloaded a SkiData card, allowing them to skip the line and head straight to the slopes.
As a result of a successful partnership first season of partnership, Arosa Lenzerheide has entered into an additional 2-year agreement with Liftopia.
We only get one opportunity to maximize sales for each day of the season. Our partnership with Liftopia has helped us develop a strategic-pricing strategy to generate the most revenue every day of the season, despite weather conditions and other factors that influence demand.”
