Owner and operator of Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone, and Breckenridge ski resorts. Vail also owns the Grand Tetons Lodge Company and recently acquired Heavenly ski resort.
Vail truly is a corporate giant. In 2001 Vail's resorts made $520 million in revenue and received a total of 4.975 million skier visits. Vail's market share is 43% in Colorado and 8.7% in the United States. Vail was the most visited mountain in the United States in 2001.
Just about everyone who lives near and skis or rides at a Vail mountain ends up working for Vail at some time. Vail is by far the biggest employer in the towns near its mountains, and it controls the economy and politics of those towns as well.
Vail also controls a huge share of the real estate market near each of its mountains. Vail's real estate profits in 2001 were over 12 million dollars.
After working for a season at a restaurant at the top of Keystone's North Peak I can say that for such a giant, evil, money-grubbing corporation, Vail manages to be a pretty good employer. The pay was decent, the work wasn't that hard, the bosses were laid back, the other people were cool. Not a bad place to work if you like to snowboard a lot and make a kinda-small amount of money.