Axess: Clever pricing in the Pizol ski area

In a pioneering project, the Swiss ski resort Pizol in St. Gallen and Axess put a vision of the future into practice. For the first time, a ski area is using the intelligent SMART PRICING system, from which ski guests and cable car operators benefit equally.

Children's promotions, senior prices, half-day tickets, discounts: the pricing of ski areas is complex. There is usually a lot of experience and a solid gut feeling behind the strategic considerations in pricing. But no matter how many guest scenarios are taken into account, the great weakness of the static prices remains: their lack of flexibility.

Because many guests are expected on certain days and fewer on others, sales efficiency suffers. Classic examples: The rush during school holidays in neighboring countries or the emptiness on the slopes on weekdays in the off-season. To counteract this, Axess has developed an innovation called SMART PRICING that offers dynamic price calculations and can very precisely determine the sales target in advance. The first pioneer has been found in the Pizol ski area in St. Gallen. The system has been in use there since December 2020.

Axess SMART PRICING works like this: Historical data (e.g. from the last five years) and influencing factors such as vacation periods are analyzed by database evaluation and included in the calculation. From this, the system creates price proposals that are adapted to the expected demand. For many days when a high frequency is forecast, the average price of the tickets increases. At the same time, ski guests will find bargain offers on less busy days, which in turn increase the frequency in the ski area. In this way, a good forecast for the following months can be made at the beginning of the season.

In the case of Pizol, the integration of historical data and calculable fixed points was only part of the pricing. The operators of the ski area wanted a solution that included the development of the weather: Klaus Nussbaumer, CEO of Pizolbahnen AG, had an innovative approach: a system that makes the current weather situation the main factor in pricing. “We took this up and developed SMART PRICING further. Until 8:00 a.m., the system calculates price proposals that can be accepted by the team or played out automatically. After that, a static price applies for the rest of the day,”explains Markus Weyrer, Director of Sales DACH at Axess. Guests can shop conveniently online and order their tickets up to seven days in advance. The weather data is fed in daily and obtained from an official weather provider.

The Pizol ski area has not only opened its doors to a smart future on the software side. Thanks to the installation of the Axess Smart Gates NG, TICKET KIOSK 600 and PARKING modules, an intelligent world is open to cable car operators. For example, the parking tickets can be combined with ski area tickets. In addition, the system is expandable: the integration of a gastronomic concept is already being considered, other connections such as ski depot or ski rental are also possible.