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Buyer’s Toolkit
Resources for capital planning
- 2026 Capital Spending Survey · PDF · Members
- Vendor Comparison Matrix · Spreadsheet
- ANSI B77.1 Inspection Checklist · PDF · Free
- Buying Playbook · Whitepaper
- 5 Case Studies · Multimedia
By the Numbers
34% drop in support tickets across the nine-resort cohort by week 12.
6× fewer manual reconciliations once the operating system was live.
$1.2M median first-year integration cost vendors rarely surface up front.
Context
Add the background a reader needs to follow the story — history, prior reporting, or how this fits the broader trend — without breaking the article’s flow.
Editor’s Note
This article is the third chapter of The Operating Question, SAM’s six-part editorial series. SAM editorial maintains independence from sponsors and has no business relationship with any vendor named here.
Key Points
- What changed, in one line the reader can repeat.
- Who it affects across the resort operation.
- The number or fact that proves the point.
Methodology
Figures are a weighted average of operator-graded scores, vendor-supplied uptime data, and SAM editorial review across 240 North American resorts (Nov 2025 – Mar 2026). Resorts with fewer than 50 skiable acres were excluded. Updated quarterly.
By the Numbers
Support tickets, week 12
−34%
Manual reconciliations
6× fewer
Median first-year cost
$1.2M
What This Means
- The point-solution era hit a wall — operators are now buying operating systems, not features.
- The payoff shows up in week 12, not week one: fewer tickets, far fewer manual reconciliations.
- Half-measures fail. Either commit to the platform or budget for the integration tax.
Carousels
Technology
The operating-system shift reshaping resort tech
Why operators stopped buying features and started buying platforms.
Operations
Inside a nine-resort cohort’s first season on one platform
The metrics that moved — and the ones that didn’t.
Business
The hidden costs vendors don’t put in the deck
Integration loss, team reorg, data lineage, decision-speed drag.
Our Partners
What Operators Say
63%
of resorts now run a single operating platform — up from 11% just three seasons ago.
Part Two — The Operating Question
Open with the sentence that makes a busy operator keep reading — the stakes, the shift, the question the piece will answer — set large in SAM’s editorial serif.
Feature
A full-bleed headline that fills the frame
By A Reporter · Photograph by Someone
“We didn’t buy software. We rebuilt how the mountain runs, and the software was the part you could see.”
Dana Whitfield · COO, Cascade Peaks Resort
Sponsored
By the Numbers
34%
fewer support tickets
6×
fewer manual reconciliations
$1.2M
median first-year cost
Vendor Spotlight
Featured Suppliers
Drawn from the SAM Buyer’s Guide · rotates weekly
