Good morning and a warm welcome to SkiStar's Q4 and full- year report. Today, you're gonna listen to me, Stefan Sjöstrand. I am the CEO and President of SkiStar. Together with me, it's gonna be,
Anders Örnulf, the CFO of the company
We would like to take you through a little bit longer presentation than we normally do during this quarter report, and that is due to, first of all, we have a full- year report, but also we would like to take you through what we have been through as a company during the last two years and show you a bit of the transformation we have went through. Bear with me 20 minutes, and then Anders will step into the Q4 and the year-end result. After that, I will take you through an outlook of how we see the upcoming season, as well a little bit of the future as well. Let's begin. As you know, SkiStar is a company who is actually really not only working on the winter season only any longer.
We really work to create the memorable alpine experiences and also would like to develop sustainable destinations and do this with the highest quality for and together with our guests. This year or previous year, which Anders will go through with you, is that we completely break the SEK 4 billion turnover record, which is amazing. We are so proud of have eight out of 10 satisfied guests. We are so proud that nine out of 10 of our employees are happy to come to work every day, and we are also very proud of having 20-28 million visits to our digital platforms during the previous year. That is so important for us since skistar.com is the main thing for SkiStar.
Now I will take you through our transformation and what we have been through the last two years as a company, and I will dig into four areas. I will talk about the digitalization. I will talk about sustainability, how we have transformed to all year round, and also how we have become ready for growth. Let's begin with the digitalization. For us, it's so much about knowing the customer and also knowing about the data and everything around the clients. Back to knowing the customer, it's so important for us, and also knowing about marketing automation. We have third-party data, and that is something we are super proud of, and we are 1.5 million members today in SkiStar, so that's very important for us coming forward in this digital landscape.
That means also that we have strengthened and also own and control the distribution platform. You can clearly compare us to, like, Booking.com or some other platforms since skistar.com is our main platform where the customer come visit us. They start to book their accommodation, they start to book ski pass, et cetera. We are very proud of this. We have, like I said, 28 million visits, and we're 1.5 million members. That means, again, first-party data. 70% of our sales comes from digital, and that means SEK 2.3 billion out of the SEK 4.1 billion come from digital sales and means that the customers or guests, they come and book everything digitally. We also have transformed that 75% of our Ski pass are sold digitally today versus how it was two years ago.
95% of our visitors and guests, they are checking in at our destinations, digitally. From manual to digital, and 95% of the guests are doing that. Looking into sustainability, and we are really into a heavy, sustainability strategy. Targeting up to 2030, we will reach 7 million skier and activity days. We have said we will reduce the climate impact with 50%, and we are really on the way. First, we are first in the world and in Europe to actually order, electrical snowmobiles, and we have done that, from Taiga, a Canadian company. We are also first really working with, electrical snow grooming. We also, even though that, the price of fuel have increased tremendously, we have decided to invest in HVO, and we have that in all snow groomers today, by HVO 100, fuel.
We are also very proud that we are on the way to reach those 7 million Ski and activity days in 2030. The previous season reached 6.3 million activities and skier days, which is very, very strong moment of truth. We are also very proud of having a lot of guests visiting us in the winter season, 12% more guests which have never visited us in the winter before, and also a large number of visitors visiting us in the summer who have never been in the Swedish or Scandinavian mountains before. If I look into the transformation to a company who is not only working in the winter business, actually working all year round, has been some very important moments.
First of all, we decided to go 100% Scandinavia and being the leading holiday organizer for Scandinavia and really focus on the Scandinavian market. That means that we are running the 5 largest resorts within Scandinavia, and our smallest resort in Sweden with 1 million ski days, for example, in Vemdalen, is actually more than double the size as number four in the market in Sweden. Just to see the size we are running in Scandinavia. We have 44% market share, and we are really proud of also having Sälen as one of the top largest destinations in the world. This year we are super proud to open up our innovation hub in Stockholm, Hammarbybacken.
This is a place where we have previously only had open for, let's say, eight weeks per year, where we had snow productions when it has been possible. Now we have transformed that to a year-round area or a year-round destination in the middle of the heart of Stockholm area. Here you can go in the mountain coaster or tubing or in our climbing park, or why not try to do skiing on this amazing opportunity we have actually created. You can ski all year round, and it's also something we are developing all the time here in Stockholm, and that we will transform into our other destinations around Scandinavia.
Here you can see we have transformed the bike parks also into snow parks, and we're really proud of our collaboration with ambassadors like Jesper Tjäder, who will be the signature for our snow parks. We are so proud of having Valle Ski School, the world's largest ski school actually, and also running Valle Kids Club in the summer. We are proud of transforming our ski rental in the winter into bike rental in the summer. We are proud of collaborate with strong athletes like Nils van der Poel and Charlotte Kalla, creating their own clothing collection in a strong collaboration with EQPE, our SkiStar brand. EQPE is a really affordable brand where we're not only working with clothing, we also work with products like goggles and introducing helmets this year as well. Very large growing segment for us.
As an example, we go completely opposite direction versus the rest of the industry. We are increasing 25% on the web, and of course, we're utilizing and maximizing our 28 million visits, so that's why we have a strong growth on the skistarshop.com. We also have the physical retail, which is growing with 50%, also completely opposite direction versus the rest of the industry. We are ready for growth. Why are we that? Yeah. First of all, we have a very strong pricing power. We have managed to differentiate our pricing, and since we have seen actually increasing of ski days the past couple of years, we had a dip during the pandemic, but we are back on record levels. We have also managed to increase our prices, and create pricing power during these years.
We also have a full focus on Scandinavia, like I said before. That means that we did a divestment of St. Johann in Tirol in Austria, which was very heavily impacted by high CapEx investments, and that is not needed in an area where we don't get more ski days. The areas where we now invest will create more ski days and more activities for our guests. A very strong and important result of that was the creation of Skiab, the JV we have done together with Peab. This where we offloaded assets, which the hotels, from SkiStar to Skiab, and we also sold a large portion of land to Skiab. That have led to that it's less impact on the balance sheet for SkiStar.
Also Skiab are the one who is now building and make construction of housing in the mountains, and that creates new ski days for SkiStar without impacting our balance sheet. SkiStar is also supporting a building of lifts, for example, which is also contributing to more ski days for us as well. We have a very strong financial situation. We have 1.5 net debt versus historical level up to three, so we are in a very strong financial positions versus how it was before the pandemic. Now we are looking forward. We have a record high investment this year. We are investing more than SEK 600 million in new lifts, for example, in new more snowmaking systems, et cetera.
We are really ready to continue these investments going forward in both new areas and new lifts. One example of that is in Vemdalen, where we just acquired 400 hectares of a new area, and that will mean new area for us, and it's completely new, and that will create more ski days for us coming forward. In Åre, we are investing in new lifts, and that means that we will really maximize the guest and customer experience, and it will also be good transportation for visitors, both in the wintertime as well as in the summertime.
Lastly but not least, we also looking to invest in new businesses, and we have started a creation process together with our top management, as well as together with all our employees, which is bearing fruit. We are now going to test phase and test, try, fail, and learn process of new businesses, which will be super exciting for us going forward within SkiStar. By that long introduction for you to give an overview of the transformation we have been through as a company, also meaning that we are coming out much stronger than we were before the pandemic, I would like to hand over to Anders, our CFO, who will guide you through the Q4 as well as our year-end result.
Thank you, Stefan. We will dive into the figures, starting with, before commenting on the Q4 and the full- year results, we like to give you background after these kind of turbulent years we have behind us now. You see a graph that shows historical development of EBIT and EBIT margin. A main reason behind the profit development are a good effect that Stefan mentioned, underlying volume, combined with a smarter and more clever pricing of the ski pass. Of course, the two years 2019, 2020, and 2021 are heavily affected of the pandemic. Impossible to parry the loss of revenue, but at least we did maintain a strong profit, which was crucial for us, then. Now looking at the full -year figure, close to SEK 900 million.
It's really exciting. The course has pointed downwards, but we're pleased to see the turnaround already, and hopefully with this as a new base going forward. If you look at operating margin of 21%, you must also remember that the new hotel division contributes with almost SEK 400 million. We don't get the profit we want at the moment, so that of course affects the margin negatively. Combined with lower capital gains from the property division, the 21% margin is even more satisfying knowing what we're gonna do going forward. Diving into the details for the full-year, starting with the revenues. Slightly complicated with the growth figures, but you can see that our sales growth is coming from across the board in all products.
We get a good effect from the previous year being hard hit by the pandemic, but remember also that we started tough in Norway also this year with the restrictions, but it eased up after Christmas and New Year, which is an important part of our winter season. Four takeaways on the revenue side. On the left side, you will find our core business, ski pass, accommodation, retail, and so on, and you see that the volume growth is behind development. Volume, i.e. new guests, are buying all products and not only the ski pass. Continued strong development of the retail business, as Stefan mentioned earlier, and the hotel division, which contributes SEK 367 million top line first half, for the first year.
We have a bit slower pace in property development, but that is more of a timing effect and type of product. You can see it in the P&L. We will come back to that later on when showing the EBIT. Looking at the EBIT and development by segment, even more satisfying than the income is the profit, of course. You can follow the changes in EBIT by segment and the impressive effect of our business model. We operate in CapEx-heavy industry, but the margin on the last ski pass sales is 100%. Fantastic, of course, for our EBIT this year. In property development, we have higher capital gains, SEK 60 million.
As we mentioned from the previous slide, the main reason is consolidating a better result from our joint ventures, especially Skiab, the joint venture Stefan mentioned earlier. Finally, our hotel division has had a slow start, but some pandemic effect. Together, we are now focusing a lot of resources to move forward in that division as well. We beat our previous pre-pandemic all-time high with SEK 273 million, which is with also a lot less capital gains, which is even more impressive. Summarizing the quarter, Stefan, you can move forward. A brief overview of the Q4 in isolation before we summarize the full-year. Summer grew over 30% compared to previous year.
On the profit side, again, there's a positive capital gain from the real estate project of SEK 200 million, which makes the comparison difficult. It's good to see the turnover there already. Of course, we'll continue to work on the profitability on the summer season. We're gonna be persistent in that. I think we can move on to the full-year figure there, Stefan. As we heard today, a lot of positive news, but we have the numbers to back it up. SkiStar is in a strong position financially and with the cash flow to invest further in our offering.
Satisfying that the earnings come from our core business and not the property development with capital gains that are on a short term. We're not dependent on the capital gains from the property development. Looking at the cash flow again, it's very favorable for SkiStar that the guests prioritize and secure their winter holiday so early. Unique to our industry, I would say. It also give us self-confidence to finance future investments. If you look at the cash flow in the report, you will see that we invest at a higher rate than before, which we already previously communicated. Our net debt is low and our liquidity forecast is better than ever due to several reasons. I would summarize them with responsible actions linked to the pandemic and uncertain times.
The balance sheet is, I would say in a historical perspective, extremely strong with an equity ratio of 57% excluding IFRS 16. Of course, an update on our efforts within sustainability is important as well. Starting with activity and recreation, we had a successful year towards our goals. We have reached 7% new guests during the winter season. There's an even stronger growth in the number of activities. The forecast until 2025 was for 250,000 activity opportunities and with the outcome just below this already this year. We are gonna gradually increase in step with the development of our summer investments. Moving on to ecosystem and impact, we've reduced 600 cubic meters of diesel in the Norwegian operations and switched to HVO 100.
88% of our vehicle fleet runs on renewable fuel, and the remaining 12% we work strategically to reduce, with, for example, the electric snowmobiles that Stefan mentioned. We see a strong reduction of greenhouse gases in our own operations, and we will come back to that more in our annual report, where we'll report our progress within the science-based targets process as well. Dialogue and interaction with the communities is also essential for us. We want to highlight the quarter is the result of a recycling project we've made in Scandinavia together with the Pantamera organization. We together with our guests have recycled over 620,000 bottles, and we donate the corresponding sum to Scandinavian organization Håll Sverige Rent and Hold Norge Rent.
Before handing over to Stefan again for the outlook, I would like to take the chance to briefly comment on an issue that is high on the agenda for most people and companies these days, the electricity and energy crisis in Europe and of course Scandinavia in particular. The system is welded together as we know now. Our consumption is influenced by many factors, but if you look historically, it has not fluctuated that much over the years. It has always been an important issue for us, but of course the situation now with the prices is, we put a lot of more efforts in it on a short and medium long term, of course.
Good to know for you guys is that the electricity zones for the ski facilities is you can see them on the page. SE2 for Sälen and Hammarbybacken. SE3. For the Vemdalen SE2 and the Trysil and Hemsedal 1 and 5 respectively. Since the issue has been important for us, we have always, we've worked with the portfolio management, as Stefan mentioned, since 2018, where we have a three to four years perspective. This of course with a strategy of having as much as possible for the next year in fixed prices. We have now between 70% and 100% of next year's forecast in fixed prices. This means that we are well equipped to cope with the electricity prices in the short term.
Also it makes it possible for us to work through the consumption aspect in the slightly longer term. A normal year, the electricity and energy cost for SkiStar is around 4%-5% of our OPEX. It's manageable in short term, medium term at least. Over to you on outlook going forward, Stefan.
Thank you so much, Anders, and as you have heard, we are really set after a fantastic year behind us. It is important, of course, to look forward to our winter season. We are really looking forward now to get on snow and plan to get fully open in December. That's why we are so satisfied with this electricity hedging we have managed to do over a period of time. Like Anders said, it is actually 4.5-5% of our OPEX. That means it's quite manageable to handle in a situation like what's happening around us at the moment.
That means that we are also 100% snow production, and we have also invested a lot in new snow production facilities during this year, and we have decided to continue do that. We also have worked very strongly together with SMHI in Sweden and MET Norway in Norway to get an overview of what could be expected from a climate perspective over the years to come. That's why we have decided to invest even more in snow production. That also, of course, is something we can do as a large player in the market to secure snow and also secure that the customer and the guest will come to us at the large periods of time. Like Anders said, of course, it's important to hedge prices and secure prices.
At the same time, we have not been so focused on this before, but now of course, both from a sustainability perspective, but also from a cost perspective, we are really putting focus on how can we step into energy-saving activities. We'll do that. We are doing that together with actually across the company. It's actually so interesting to see the engagement from all our coworkers and how we actually coming up with idea how to save cost. We also are talking with our guests and sending out information with CRM to our guests about be careful with the usage and don't spend too much actually energy on unnecessary things. Also good for the climate and also good for business.
We see there is a very good macro trend that recent survey we have done is that nine out of ten prefer skiing in Scandinavia rather than going abroad. We really believe that also this currency effect right now is very positive for us in SkiStar. Because if we look into previous recessions, we can see that it's not any big impact on SkiStar, actually. It's actually the opposite impact positively. That is because it's more expensive to travel abroad with the currency. Also international guests are returning to us at our resorts. It will be a big return of international guests into Scandinavia. We see the Danish customers, they are roughly around 20% of our number of guests.
We can see that there is a large interest from UK, from Netherlands, from Germany, et cetera, to return back to Scandinavia. Of course, the currency is a large impact on that. Again, I really would like to underline that historically we have minor impact from previous recessions. We can see a really steady curve and very small dip during recession 2008 or around the millennium. We are very happy to see that we are now into a good place, both financially and also ready to take off for growth. That means that we are ready to continue to invest, and we will do the investment both for future SkiStar and build a much more attractive resort. As well build much more ski days with new lifts and also new facilities.
Also activities for year-round. Here I really like to see how we will take Hammarbybacken as the innovation hub and test, try, fail and learn and also implement what we have learned there into other resorts and do that rather quickly actually. We have already decided to make some investment for next summer based upon the learnings from, for example, the summer ski in Hammarbybacken and do that at our other destinations. It's a good development. My friends, we have a very strong booking situation. We are +7% compared to our season before the pandemic, which is historically high and something we are very proud of.
In those times, when you hear so much negative buzz, we are so proud to see that there is a large interest to go and visit us and travel to us. Then people say to me, "Yes, Stefan, but you have minus 10% compared to last year." Yes, we have. There is two things we at SkiStar not can impact, and one is the calendar. This year we have a very, what you say, a calendar, which is very good for us as employers, but not maybe as good for us running tourism during the Christmas and New Year period of time. Out of this minus 10% we can see compared to last year, there is actually more than 70% of that comes only from the week one.
This means also that we have much more visitors planned to come week 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. There is a strong demand, and as I said, if we are 7% up compared to the season before the pandemic, it's very strong, and something we are very satisfied with. At this moment of time, we are longing for winter. By that, we hand over to the facilitator and guide us through some Q&As.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please dial zero one on your telephone keypads now to enter the queue. Once your name has been announced, you can ask your question. If you find your question is answered before it's your turn to speak, you can dial zero two to cancel. Our first question comes from Adela Dashian of Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Good morning, Adela Dashian, Stefan Sjöstrand. Congratulations on a great year. If we just think ahead now, we're into the COVID unwind with more challenging macroeconomic conditions. You've already mentioned that in those type of times. Could you please give us some more insight on the booking trends for the upcoming winter season? How much should we expect is volume related, and how much is from the price mix? Just any insight on that would be great. Thank you.
Thank you for the question, Adela. I start to give an overview on that, Anders. We are like as I mentioned +7% is something historically high. I think it is important to bear in mind that -10% compared to last year is again the large impact of that is coming from a calendar effect. I could see that you and Jefferies mentioned that in your pre-report and analysis Adela, which I really highly appreciate because it's important to take that in consideration that every fifth year we have a calendar effect. If I take that calendar effect off and look into then the +7%, we can see a very strong demand for coming and visiting us during the wintertime.
We have very strong bookings week 51 and 52 still, but they are a little bit lower compared to last year. Again, the calendar effect. Week one is the one who become the really bad week for us, so to say. That is connected to changing days. Normally we have changing days Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. But since Christmas and New Year's Eve is coming on a Saturday, we can't have a changing day on the Christmas Eve, and we can't have the changing day on the Christmas Day or the New Year's Day. Meaning that those changing days will be coming on Monday instead. That means that week one become much shorter. It's actually that is how the calendar impact hits us. The main drop in bookings is mainly connected to week one, nothing else.
I really would like to underline that all of you listening to this call, we are very strongly booked on week two, three, four, five , six, which is the normally low season weeks. We have a very strong demand still on the holiday weeks seven to 10. We are in a quite strong situation actually. We believe that this currency effect also have a positive impact on us because that's also some historical data is showing us that when we have the very low currency or weak Swedish currency, so to say, it's actually impact us on two things. One is that the Swedish tourism is not so much eager to travel abroad because it's very expensive.
Just compare the dollar is 25%, or the Swiss franc is 15%, or versus the Danish customer, or even the European customer can come and travel to us with a very good currency. It's double impact on us, and we believe that this is actually helping us at this period of time.
If you just were to compare week one to the other weeks around Christmas and New Year's, is that a particularly large week, or is it more balanced throughout those in that period of time?
I mean, like I said, week one. The large portion of the drop is coming from week one actually, and we have a smaller drop on week 51, 52. That is actually not so what you're saying large. It's substantial. It's actually the week one who is impacting us versus the rest of the weeks looks very good.
Is week one a more important week for you than week 52, for example?
No, actually, it is important week, but normally, I mean, it depends all the time on calendar. I mean, some years you have a week 53 as well, which could help you to gain a lot of visits. But I mean, like I said, it's if you take the large portion of this -10% is coming from week one, and it's not something we are. Like I'm turning back to the +7% instead because that's much more positive. If I look into the +7%, historically, if we are +7% versus our years before the pandemic, it is extremely high.
And then just-
Can I also add a few?
Just on your visibility for the
Excuse me.
Yes. Sorry.
I just want to add one thing to what Stefan mentioned. He gave a very thorough explanation of the booking pattern as we speak at the moment. I think you also mentioned something about the sales and the price. I think I would just like to highlight, I heard a question or maybe I interpret it myself, but you're absolutely right. You will see a more positive effect on our sales looking at the booking figures, because we have an underlying price effect of the product, especially the ski pass. What you also should notice is that one aspect is, it's volume, of course, it's price of course, but it's also mix effects.
Looking at the last five years, you see the mix effects is even bigger than the price effect of the ski pass. We have a really good price effect on moving people towards the SkiStar All, for example, when looking at the average ski pass price then. You should not take the volume figure or booking figure and add it on the previous figures. You have to think a bit about the prices and the mix effect too. I think you should look at it historically five years because it will not be something dramatic next year either. Yeah. Sorry, Adela. You had another question?
Yeah. No, that was great insight. But my last question just relates to your visibility for the remainder of the winter season and if we exclude Christmas and New Year's. I mean, last year the booking patterns were historically, you know, people were just booking ahead of time because everything was sold out early. Are you seeing the same type of patterns this year, or are your guests returning to more normalized behavior and waiting out maybe due to the macroeconomic constraints?
I think we are in a very favorable situation compared to many other companies working with the travel industry. Again, we are 7% ahead of our previous record year before the pandemic. I really would like to underline that 7% up before pandemic, and that's very high numbers. That means that the people who would like to come and visit SkiStar's resort, they know that they need to book in advance to get the cabin or a room or what they really longing for. That is something which is still there. We see a high pattern of booking in advance. We also see that more people actually not only book accommodation, they actually book in advance ski pass, they book ski school, and also they book ski rental.
We have actually, at this moment of time, higher revenues compared to that we had last year. Even though that we are behind in booking nights, we are ahead in pre-booking, as we are exactly like Anders said, we are also mixing not only ski pass, we're also selling the whole offer. We are very satisfied to look into, again, week two, three, four, five, six, which is normally the low season. They become actually starts to be quite good season as well for us and not becoming a low season any longer. We have a much more stable pattern throughout the year, which is something super satisfying, of course.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. We currently have one further question in the queue. Just as a reminder to participants, if you do wish to ask a question, please dial zero one on your telephone keypads now. That next question comes from the line of Karl-Johan Bonnevier of DNB. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Good morning, yeah, Stefan and Anders. Just to continue on the previous reasoning. Is it possible to indicate how much pre-booking represent of the total number ski days of a normal season? To get some sort of say idea about how much of the full capacity that really is booked up at this time.
I don't have that number. Maybe I should have been prepared for that number. I don't have that now, of course. Again, I mean, we used to say that the first of December, we should have been 80% booked. We are absolutely following that trend, going that direction. That I can say. I don't have exactly the number you're asking for, KG. Maybe we need to see how we can come back to that in some way. We feel very confident about the situation. Again, since we are 7% ahead of the previous before pandemic, so to say.
Yeah, it's a good indication.
Yeah.
If you look at, you say first of December, 80% booked when you start the season, what would that number be in a representative, say, so today in, say early October?
No, that's what I said. I don't have that number in my head.
Okay.
I maybe should be prepared for that number. Let us see how we can come back to that number because I think we are talking about around 50%, actually, to be honest, pre-booked. I'm not. I need to be maybe more careful about it since there are a lot of investors sitting on the call. I don't want to come out with wrong percentage number. I think reading about all bad stuff, it just feels a little bit. I got interviewed in Dagens industri, the TV this morning, and almost like you should be embarrassed that you're presenting such a good number in those times.
You can read the newspapers about all bad things happening, and we are then presenting something positive. I think we should be positive about the situation we are. We can also be positive that there is a strong demand from the customers to come and visit SkiStar's resorts during wintertime. I should not be ashamed of that, actually. We should be proud of the situation we're in.
No question about it. No question. I totally agree with you. If you look at things that might change during these kind of recessionary tendencies we see out there for the moment, do you see that you get better control of the total inventory of bookable beds in your resorts that maybe the ones that have historically not used your services now might be using it to say get some extra revenue into their economy, so to say?
I think it is a very good question, and I think it's also good to mention that on this call actually. Because we have got more questions from owners of the cabins asking for us to rent out more weeks and also ask for exchange weeks. For example, instead of me as an owner taking the Christmas period or the period of break, spring breaks myself. I rather maybe give that week to SkiStar so I could gain a little bit more profit since those weeks are a little bit higher income, and I can take a lower week instead where I get less income. We can clearly see a request from owners. We also see a request of more owners asking for us to rent out the object.
We can see that indications, and I think that's good for us because that means that, for us it's no risk. Taking those beds is actually the opposite. It's good for us to make sure we get more beds and also can sell more ski pass.
When you look at that, you also indicated quite a good pricing component that is gonna support you during the season. Is it possible to say how much more expensive accommodation is during the high season this year compared to last year or something like that?
What we have seen in the accommodation is actually quite stable price because that's it's very variable because it's. I got the question from a journalist this morning and he asked me about the price increases on ski pass. I said, "Unfortunately, I can't ask because it's very different." I just ask a question back, "What is the price for a flight ticket to Copenhagen?" I think it is impossible to answer on that. The same we have since our price is fluctuating based upon demand and also when you are buying your ski pass. That's why probably we see more people buying now in advance rather than they are booked close to coming. If you use our deals, it's very good for you.
We also see, like Anders mentioned, the price effect is very interesting to see. Because what I think many of you listening to this call maybe have underestimated is the pricing power we have in the company, and also how we have managed to leverage our prices and also transform our visitors both into the five to the eight days ski pass, plus the SkiStar All pass. That is gaining us a lot of more mix effect. That started that journey 2018. I think the impact for us will be very favorable, even if we should have less skier days next year versus what we have previous year actually.
We are in, I think we are in a very positive mood sitting here presenting both our full-year report, where we are showing a stronger situation than we ever been in SkiStar, both from a balance sheet perspective and financial perspective, margin perspective, et cetera. Also actually looking ahead, even though it is a future recession coming in. Since we are normally, if I look historically, very limited impacted on such recessions.
Just on that, if I may ask you. If you look back at the dips in 2008 and the millennium shift, as they were. I guess we had at least a more extended recessionary period that interacted with your high season. How big a change did it mean for the number of ski days?
It was very minor impact. Actually, I tried to do a.
Mm.
I mean, if you look at the pandemic, it was really down. During the, Anders, we looked.
No.
Into that figures actually.
If you look at the financial crisis or credit crisis, 2007, 2008, you cannot see that in our figures. We had a negative trend in 2011, 2012, 2013. But that was for those who were there working here then. They talked about we had a couple of really bad winters in Scandinavia, 2010, 2011, and that affected our offer for 2011, 2012. Looking at the direct on the financial crisis and the household spend, you cannot see that in the SkiStar figures, at least.
It's actually the opposite, like we spoke about the currency effect. I think we should not neglect the currency effect and the currency impact because that we can see a significant change. If we couldn't see any significant changes in the booking pattern during the previous financial crises, we could see a significant change in positive effect of the currency then. I think that's important to not neglect that Swedes will limit the travel abroad since the currency effect is so impacting you at the moment. The Danes, Germans, British, Netherlands people are very favorable visiting Sweden at this moment of time with this weak currency. I think that's something we have seen historically impacting us positively.
That also probably dampened the fall of 2007-2008.
Yeah.
you mentioned.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good indication. This is, I guess, the first year they've had the full responsibility of the hotel operations in your numbers at least. Even though you, I guess you were doing the operations before. How could you? You indicated that you thought it had a slow start. What's the opportunity there and what is your take on this first season?
I think first of all, we are very good in running ski operations and has been doing that since 47 years back. We are less good in running hotels, and that's why we are strengthening the management there. We have been too slow in the start of. I think we focused too much on the making the Skiab deal and looking at myself should maybe taking a larger responsibility within the recruitment faster of the hotel division and also how to organize around that. That now is putting full speed ahead. If I look into all the good things we have done during the pandemic, I think this is maybe one area we have done less good.
That's good then because then we have some potentials, KG, to improve our business.
Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. For me, it's a huge opportunity.
No doubt. Yeah.
I mean, it's six or seven at nowadays the biggest and the best hotels and lodges at our resorts. We haven't really started yet with the economies of scale and running them together as one division. For me, it's just a one big opportunity, actually. Looking forward to next year.
In a normal year, what kind of profit contribution would you expect from the hotel operation? Or is that so much blended into the ski operation, so you see the upside in the ski operation rather than what you separately account for as hotel operation?
Exactly. For us, it's all about the total SkiStar result at the bottom line. How we aggregate that at our division, it's gonna be a strategic decision. I will not expect any dramatic changes, but for sure it will be better and better.
I think just to build on a little bit what Anders saying also. I mean, here we are not the traditional hotel operator. If you compare to the large one, like Scandic or Quality Hotel, for example, they are really looking into another revenue model of how to increase the room rates, et cetera. Now when it has been this very high increase of room rates, we are not working like that. We are more into actually have a reasonable price and then fill up the beds rather. Then we can also upsell and create this, like Anders mentioned, we blend it with the ski pass, ski school, ski rental, et cetera, and create the packages.
That is our main thing, and that's what I think is important for all of us to understand. Of course, we should not do negative result in our hotel division. We should do it in a positive way. I think it's to balance that a little bit better.
Looking at the -20%, -30% we have had here for the last, say, one or two years, that has seemed more like a startup in your structure, so to say. Looking at the next couple of years, it should be a small but positive contribution.
Yeah.
Is that a good?
Yeah
Interpretation?
Yeah, I think it is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
One final for me. This target of 7 million ski days in 2030 coming up from 6.3 million ski activity days, I should say.
Yeah
How do you see getting from 6.3 to 7 when it comes to, say, breakdown ski days and activity days to get to there?
I think, I don't know whether you wanna say something, Stefan, but I think we will present that in more details in our annual report. We have a plan, but last three years has been really, I mean, up and down for SkiStar. What we thought was impossible, we already reached in some aspects. We're gonna publish that in more details in our annual report in a month.
Yeah. I can just give you a thought on that. I mean, ski days we have seen, like Anders said, we are reaching a very strong level of ski days. By the investments we are doing, we believe that we can create a much more attractive SkiStar going forward. At the same time also from an activity days, I think also these investments we have done in the period outside the winter, that has been very successful for us from an activity days perspective. Now we are really working on the revenue model on those activity days.
I think we could see a very interesting pattern, both from SkiStar Hammarbybacken, where we now call this innovation center, because there we will try different types of pricing models and elaborate more about how to sell these activities, one area. Then also we have tried this summer in Sälen, tried to see when we have the activities with bath, with the lift, with the biking and the climbing, et cetera, when we have many activities, we can sell this pass. We can sell the summer pass, and we can sell the winter pass. I think that is what we are looking into. Those will help us to create even more activity days actually going forward. Our revenue model will work even in the summertime as it works in the wintertime.
Do I remember correctly if you earlier talked about 600,000 activity days, say, and 6.4 million ski days as a breakdown, or is that just me remembering something that you haven't said?
Oh, that's correct, KG. You have a good memory. Like I said, we are up to 300,000 activity days already, after two years, and that shows that we're in a really good pattern. We reached 6 million ski days, this year, or previous year already. I think we are in a very favorable situation in that.
Good momentum. One more thing popped up for me here. Looking at Klövsjö, could you give us an idea about the investment you have made there and what you are looking to make out of that area and how you see that would come into the operations?
Yeah. I'm really glad you asked that because sometimes I feel sounds very boring that we are focusing on our own five largest ski resorts in Scandinavia. I think I would like to go back to the SkiStar, where skistar.com are in the middle. Because how could we maximize and utilize our customer database and our knowledge about the first-party data? I think many underestimate how we steer and own the booking and the customer actually. By investing in existing resorts will help us to create even larger customer base, actually. In Klövsjö we are now acquired 400 hectares from Holmen, a very large area, fantastic area.
By that, we are now working together with the municipality how to create, firstly, much more skiing area and that we are sitting down together with the municipality and do that together. When we do that together, we will start with the ski area and then, after ski area, we will also start to build housing, and we will build housing connected to the ski. It will be ski in, ski out. Actually everything we are building, both in SkiStar and Skiab, will be in close connection to the slopes and also in a high quality of investment.
If you look into that from a time perspective, you know you need to do these plans together with the municipality and to work together with Härjedalen Municipality are a very good collaboration, and they are very forward looking. We do this together, and something I'm very pleased with, and they do it also in a very fast pace. We believe that we could have something strong coming out quite soon, and then we can start the exploration and also investment. I think when you need to invest in a lift, it's like, let's say SEK 100 million for one lift. It's SEK 200 million for two. Here we are looking to maybe 2-3, at least one large lift and two smaller ones.
We are looking into create these areas. Yeah, SEK 200 million it's cost to invest, but we are very happy to do that investment.
Is it close enough to Vemdalen, so you can connect it to the Vemdalen area?
Yeah, yeah. It's there is this already a bridge over between Klövsjö and Skarvruet. You will use the same bridge to come over and then we will also, together with the municipality, create more infrastructure. We will change a little bit of the roads. Already in the beginning of summer, Skiab made the investment in a new hotel in Klövsjö, where SkiStar now then is renting this lodge, where we also plan to rebuild and extend this lodge to a larger extent. This was a plan we had when we made that, or Skiab made that acquisition before summer.
I think you should see this Vemdalen exploration is in a larger context, and we are looking into exactly the same in Sälen, Lindvallen South, and also more in Åre, et cetera. Really have trust in us in that we believe that we can grow in our existing five amazing resorts we have in Scandinavia.
Excellent. Thank you very much. Good luck out there.
Thanks. Thanks.
Thank you. As there are no further questions from the phones at this time, I'll hand the floor back to our speakers for the closing comments.
I would like to thank you all, and I think it was important for us to also.