Dynamic pricing, a system in which prices for airline seats, award flights, cruise tickets and nearly everything else varies with demand has made it to more than half the ski resorts in Switzerland, where there is no longer a fixed price for a ski lift pass.
Instead, at resorts such as Zermatt, computer programs track past sales history, weather, hotel occupancy and other factors to determine how much skiers will have to pay to get to the top. Although in theory, prices will drop when demand is low, skiers say they haven’t seen that happen yet.
With that in mind, skiers are encouraged to prebook passes as a hedge against last-minute increases. The practice gives ski lift operators more certainty of how much they’ll make, how much staff is needed, and potentially the chance of spreading ski traffic out more evenly across the day.
