skelley19;c-67679 wroteI think the solution to over-crowding at the larger Indy resorts is a reservation system.
Reservation systems have some major drawbacks for both ski areas and guests. Obviously, the system is only needed on good, high quality ski days. Not even the biggest mountains are at capacity during sub-par weekends.
For ski areas, reserving Indy guests means they are sacrificing last minute decisions for full walk up rate, instead substituting in a substantially reduced ticket (since it is zero sum, there are only X reservations allows, regardless of who paid what).
You could limit Indy reservations. But that screws the Indy pass holder and is a reason against it (this happened with Cannon when I had an Indy, you really needed to book a few days in advanced if there was going to be fresh snow during the weekend).
A reservation system might still have gaps as you cannot limit season pass holder visits (well, I guess you could force season pass holders to reserve and not allow skiing when at capacity, but that would negatively impact guest satisfaction and pass renewals).
The one benefit to everyone with reservation systems is capping parking when you know that the lots will be full. That way people do not attempt to drive to a mountain when there is no parking.
That can backfire, though. If parking is full and someone arrives late that has a reservation. Reservations cannot perfectly account for parking, so that is a big can of worms. The only way to work it is to substantially under estimate capacity and guarantee that parking does not overflow... resulting in less revenue for the ski area and more upset guests.
There is no winning. I think the right thing to do is just let parking lots naturally cap capacity. If you really want to ski at a specific mountain, get there before opening or have a plan B.
