- Emma, Your Epic Mountain Assistant, is the world's first
digital mountain assistant to offer information on everything from
grooming, lift line wait times and parking to recommendations on
rentals, lessons and dining options.
- Guests will instantly receive expert, local information
tailored to each resort and to their needs.
- Emma builds on the Company's long track record of
seamlessly using technology to improve the guest experience without
impacting their connection to the outdoors.
BROOMFIELD, Colo., March 13, 2018 /CNW/ -- Vail Resorts, Inc.
(NYSE: MTN) today introduced Emma, your Epic Mountain Assistant,
the world's first digital mountain assistant to help guide guests
while on their ski and snowboard vacation at nine of the Company's
resorts. Emma is an interactive mountain assistant who uses
artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP)
to answer a wide range of guests' questions about their ski
vacation. Emma will debut for the 2018-19 winter season at
Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone in Colorado; Park
City in Utah; Heavenly,
Northstar and Kirkwood in Tahoe; and Whistler Blackcomb in
British Columbia, Canada.
Through short message service (SMS) text, Emma answers guest
questions in real time. On-demand information can be accessed 24
hours a day, 7 days a week, resulting in instant service and a
seamless experience for guests from exploring a resort's village to
learning if a favorite slope is groomed to recommendations for the
best après-ski location. Topics such as snow conditions and lift
line wait times, parking and in-resort wayfinding, ski school, lift
tickets and equipment rental options, on- and off-mountain dining
and activity recommendations and more can be accessed through Emma.
From planning a ski vacation to arrival and all the way through to
departure, Emma offers guests an unprecedented breadth of
information tailored to each resort. If Emma cannot answer a
question, she will seamlessly connect guests to chat with a live
agent for further assistance. As Emma interacts with guests, her
knowledge base and insight will continue to expand through both
human and machine learning.
Emma will be launched as an "alpha" version to a very small
community of users this March to prepare for her debut in the
2018-19 winter season. Future generations of Emma may include
integration with Facebook Messenger, voice assistants like Alexa,
wearable technology notifications and Vail Resorts' groundbreaking
EpicMix mobile application.
"At Vail Resorts, we are committed to delivering an experience
of a lifetime to each one of our guests and that means giving them
the information they need, when they need it in order to plan and
fully engage in the experience while at our world-class mountain
resorts," said Rob Katz, chairman
and chief executive officer of Vail Resorts. "As we have done
before with EpicMix, we can use cutting edge technology with Emma
to improve our guest service without detracting from their
connection with the incredible natural beauty of our resorts or the
personal engagement provided by our passionate employees."
A Decade of Guest Service Innovation
Emma is the
latest among many of Vail Resorts' technological firsts in the
mountain resort industry. As Vail Resorts celebrates the
10th anniversary of the Epic Pass, the Company is also
looking back on more than a decade of service innovations, which
provide new ways for guests to connect with the resorts and
interact with family and friends.
- EpicMix, which debuted in 2010 after more than two years of
development, is a ground-breaking app that allows skiers and
snowboarders to track their days and vertical feet skied, earn
digital pins, compete with friends and family through the
leaderboards and share on-mountain accomplishments with friends
through social media.
- Vail Resorts followed up the original version of EpicMix with
EpicMix Photo in 2011, delivering free digital photos to the
EpicMix app taken on the mountain that could be shared through
social media.
- Next generations included the debuts of EpicMix Racing,
recording digitized amateur racing statistics and EpicMix Academy,
tracking progress for guests enrolled in ski and snowboard
school.
- In 2014, Vail Resorts introduced Epic Day Lift Tickets, an
online and mobile platform that allows guests to purchase daily
lift tickets in advance of their trip at the guaranteed lowest
price and use the express line to pick up tickets or reload more
days of skiing on mobile or online and skip the ticket line
completely.
- Vail Resorts was the first company in the mountain resort
industry to introduce real-time lift line wait times in the 2015-16
winter season with the EpicMix Time app by using anonymized,
crowd-sourced Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals.
- In 2017, the launch of EpicMix Time Insights website enabled
guests to select and view actual lift line wait times for any day
throughout the ski season using data collected during the previous
season with the EpicMix Time app in order to plan their ski
vacation.
- During its launch for the 2018-19 winter season, Emma will
offer real-time, resort-specific information to guests throughout
Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone in Colorado; Park
City in Utah; Heavenly,
Northstar California and
Kirkwood in Tahoe, and Whistler
Blackcomb in Canada.
"Vail Resorts continually enhances the guest experience across
our mountain resorts through innovative firsts," said Robert Urwiler, chief information officer for
Vail Resorts. "Emma is the first application of AI and NLP in the
mountain resort industry and will offer our guests access to
information that is authentic to each resort. Through innovations
such as Emma and many others, we continue to pioneer new guest
service standards for the mountain resort and leisure industry,
using state-of-the art technology to seamlessly improve the guest
experience."
For more information about Emma, please visit
www.EmmaIsEpic.com.
About Vail Resorts, Inc.
Vail Resorts, Inc., through its subsidiaries, is the leading global
mountain resort operator. Vail Resorts' subsidiaries operate 11
world-class mountain resorts and three urban ski areas, including
Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone in Colorado; Park
City in Utah; Heavenly,
Northstar and Kirkwood in the Lake
Tahoe area of California
and Nevada; Whistler Blackcomb in
British Columbia, Canada; Perisher
in Australia; Stowe in Vermont; Wilmot
Mountain in Wisconsin;
Afton Alps in Minnesota and Mt.
Brighton in Michigan. Vail Resorts owns and/or manages a
collection of casually elegant hotels under the RockResorts brand,
as well as the Grand Teton Lodge Company in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Vail Resorts Development
Company is the real estate planning and development subsidiary of
Vail Resorts, Inc. Vail Resorts is a publicly held company traded
on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: MTN). The Vail Resorts
company website is www.vailresorts.com and consumer website is
www.snow.com.
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SOURCE Vail Resorts, Inc.