In 2021, the fourth year of their partnership with Catalate, the largest ski resort in the Graubünden region of Switzerland, Arosa Lenzerheide, capitalized on online sales trends to maximize revenue in arguably one of the most challenging seasons in the history of ski. Utilizing Catalate’s dynamic pricing strategy and advanced reporting tools, the resort saw a 50% increase in online revenue from the 19/20 season and improved operational predictability during a season where capacity was limited and operations were uncertain. 

In its first and second seasons of partnership with Catalate, the resort vastly exceeded its primary goal to grow online revenue beyond 400K CHF, with over 5.3M CHF in online revenue for winter 17/18 and almost doubled to 9.0M CHF in winter 18/19. Despite the ski season coming to a close abruptly due to COVID-19 in winter 19/20, the resort was able to reach nearly 14M CHF in online sales using Catalate’s cloud store and dynamic pricing strategy. For the 20/21 winter season, online sales for the same products (4-hour, 1-14 day lift tickets) topped 21M CHF. 

With over 73% of all ticket sales made online during the winter 20/21 season, Arosa topped 22M (all products) CHF in total online sales with the addition of 14-21 day lift tickets, despite capacity and social distancing requirements. 

“At the start of the 20/21 season, we believed there would be fewer skiers on the very busy days, so we wanted to reach the maximum online price a bit more often on the day before the trip date. As we got the information that there would be capacity restrictions, we had to expect fewer guests and therefore we reduced the number of tickets below window rate by 20%. Catalate’s system and team enabled us to make adjustments quickly as the situation evolved rapidly so we could reach our targets for the average price by skier day,” said Christian Wyrsch, Head of Cash Office and Sales, Arosa Lenzerheide. 

Along with a strategic change in pricing strategy as a result of capacity constraints, the resort utilized Catalate’s reporting offerings to help with operational predictability and staffing.

“We had an automatic e-mail with the skier days booked for the season every two hours. This helped to control the limitation as we were able to predict the number of skiers coming to the resort, and take tickets offline if we were close to reaching capacity,” Wyrsch said.

Data from the 20/21 season shows that short length-of-stay products such as 4-hour, afternoon, 1-Day tickets were much more popular this year than in previous years, especially when compared to multi-day products.

“Due to the data available now from online sales, we also got to know our guests better. Furthermore, dynamic prices, selling online and the ability to directly load a SkiData card met the needs of our guests,” Wyrsch said.

Arosa continues to power forward with strategic demand-based pricing plans from Catalate and advanced pre-sale tickets to maximize revenue and operational efficiency. Want to learn about how your business can benefit from strategic pricing strategies and modern e-commerce? Get in touch today.

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Catalate is a global pricing and e-commerce company empowering ski resorts, parks, and attractions to increase online revenue. As the only purpose-built ticketing platform for the industry, Catalate has developed successful strategies for hundreds of Partners across $1 billion in online sales.