Vail Mountain Club
February 28th, 2009Posted in Skiing in Luxo-land
Earlier this month I blogged about the growing trend of ski resorts creating expensive, exclusive private membership clubs to coddle (and profit handsomely from) the wealthy. I groused about these clubs because the resorts give these members special privileges to get on the ski lifts before the rest of us. Just yesterday I overheard a conversation in a lift line between an instructor and a skier. Both of them were observing another instructor and a client getting on a lift ahead of the rest of the people in the lift line awaiting the opening of the lift on a powder morning. To my surprise, it was the instructor who said he didn’t think it was right for people to get special privileges like that, even if they were willing to pay for it. This instructor I knew to be an instructor of many years at several resorts, the type of person who gets clients willing to pay for early access. I was therefore surprised, but pleased, that he objected to people taking lessons having early access to the mountain. But it is a cancerous trend, especially when resorts stand to make far more than a few extra dollars on group or private lessons by offering early access.
Last week the New York Times reported on Vail’s newest entry into this offensive realm, the Vail Mountain Club. At a time when many people and families are losing jobs, struggling to pay bills, and even feed their families, the spending substantial sums for the sake of status and trivial conveniences seems pretty out of tune with the reality a growing number of Americans are dealing with. This is the time when Vail is introducing its newest club for the wealthy to get pampered in, according to the Times. The Vail Mountain Club offers its members the usual array of slope side and on mountain amenities: a luxurios private clubhouse with ski access in the heart of Vail village, ski lockers, a fitness center, a spa, ski valets, concierge service, a pool, hot tub, on-mountain dinning, a robust social calendar and special events, and two lifetime ski passes, all for a $150,000 initiation fee and annual dues of $6000. If a member wants to have a parking spot next to the lifts, the initiation fee rises to $275,000.
The Idaho Food Bank just mailed out a newsletter informing us that in 2007, 11.4% of the people in my home state of Idaho had struggled with hunger or were “food insecure” -and that was in 2007 when times were good here in Idaho. In the last six months of 2008 requests for food assistance rose 27%, according to the Food Bank. According to the Times, Vail sold 200 memberships in the VMC at the $150,000 rate and 185 at the $275,000 rate. That’s nearly 90 million dollars. The Idaho Food Bank figures each dollar in donations equals three meals for the hungry. So the VMC’s initiation fees could have provided close to 90 million meals for the hungry instead of trivial pampering for the status seeking few hundred.
I’ve made a few dollars providing things for some very wealthy people. Most of them are pretty sane and pretty nice. The past several years have been exceedingly good to them. Maybe its time for them to be a little more sensitive to those who haven’t been so lucky. Is a parking space next to the lifts really worth $125,000? Is that the best use for that much money? Just some food for thought.
David Proctor commented:
Thank you for keeping in touch with your home state and your thoughts on the difficult issue of hunger here. If there is any more information I can supply, please let me know.