exclusive by design

As I have noted before Exclusive by Design was a long ago marketing sloging Aspen Ski Co used.  While they have retired it maybe they should bring it back.  At least if they want to be honest.

As this season comes to a close this year and I have 22 days on my ski pass I am looking at passes for the 2018-2019 season.

Check this out.

	Aspen Season Pass	Ikon Pass	Epic pass
Cost	$1899	$899	$899
Unlimited mountains	Aspen, aspen highlands, buttermilk, snowmass	Mammoth, Steamboat, Stratton, tremblant, winter park, Squaw valley and alpine meadows and more	Vail, beaver creek, whistler blackcomb, Breckenridge, keystone, park city, heavenly, northstar, Kirkwood, stowe, and more
Limited days	0 mountains	7 days at deer valley + jackson hole, + big sky+ killington, + revelstoke, Aspen snowmass + 7 total at alta-snowbird, and loon, Sunday river and sugarloaf	7 days at telluride, crested butte, okemo and mt Sunapee plus some international and Canadian resorts

If ski co wants to be honest they should rename the Aspen Premiere Season pass the Screw the locals pass.  Plain and simple for $900 you get unlimited days at other premiere resorts like squaw and Alpine meadows or Vail and Beaver creek and Whistler Blackcomb plus 7 days at a slew of other top notch resorts OR you can ski when you want at Aspen-Snowmass for more than double (111% more to be exact) the price of virtually every other season pass in the country.  Ski Co mumbles something about the Aspen-Snowmass experience being 'better' than the ski experience elsewhere.  Is Aspen-Snowmass twice as good as Squaw (hosted a winter olympics) or Whistler (also hosted an olympics).  Is it twice as good as Vail and Beaver Creek (host of FIS Birds of Prey downhill every year) in terms of luxury?  The answer is NO.

Not only does this pass screw year around residents it's likely to hurt the town as well.  While the Ikon pass does include 7 days of Aspen-Snowmass skiing you wanna bet that some of our visitors who often come for longer periods of time are going to be looking to take some of those days elsewhere?  And if we have another snow year like we had this past year how pleased would you be to bail on your Aspen trip and replace it with Jackson hole?  Very pleased is the answer you are looking for Mike Kaplan,  and Steve Skadron your should be very worried (as should all Pitkin County citizens)  Tourist dollars keep our taxes low and our school strong among other things, and this pass will drive those dollars to other communities.

Aspen is a great ski town far away from everything.  It's hard to get to, expensive and has brain melting real estate prices (which affects everything).  And now Ski Co has decided to pursue a ticket pricing scheme that seems designed to reinforce exclusivity.  Given my choice between marketing slogans of 'The Aspen Way--Love, Unity, Respect and Commit" and Exclusive by Design I would go with the latter--it has the benefit of being honest.

Prices for Ikon and Epic go up starting May 1st so pick your pass soon.  And my friends who live in Steamboat and Squaw watch out I might be looking to spend a lot of time at your homes this winter.