Victoria’s alpine resorts on taxpayer life support amid privatisation bid
Alpine Resorts Victoria, which manages six snow resorts including Falls Creek, Mount Buller and Mount Baw Baw, is reliant on emergency government funds to stay afloat.
Victoria’s alpine resorts are being propped up by millions of dollars in emergency taxpayer funding as the state government prepares to privatise the operations of two loss-making mountains.
Despite the sector contributing $2.14 billion to the state economy annually, the managing body of Victoria’s six snow resorts, Alpine Resorts Victoria (ARV), is on financial life support and reliant on a Treasury “letter of comfort” to stay afloat.
The Victorian government wants to sell the operating rights to its Mount Baw Baw and Lake Mountain alpine resortCredit: Nine
In a bid to stem the losses, the authority is moving to privatise operations at Mount Baw Baw and Lake Mountain after decades of operating in the red.
According to the Alpine Resorts Victoria annual report, tabled to state parliament weeks late on Friday, a $13 million taxpayer subsidy helped the authority post a modest technical surplus of $4.39 million. Without the government’s intervention, the authority would have faced a multimillion-dollar deficit.
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“The ability of ARV to continue as a going concern and discharge its liabilities in the ordinary course of business is dependent upon the continuing financial support of the Victorian State Government,” the report states.
“This funding, provided via a Letter of Comfort, recognises the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on our cash reserves, the increased cost of resort operations, the ongoing need to subsidise operations at Lake Mountain and Mt Baw Baw, and the revenue loss associated with a limited winter 2024 season.”
Alpine Resorts Victoria was established in 2022, combining four separate resort management boards, to increase the sustainability of the six resorts: Mount Buller, Falls Creek, Mount Stirling, Mount Baw Baw, Lake Mountain and Mount Hotham.
A formal expression-of-interest process was launched in December 2024 to offload the management of Mount Baw Baw and Lake Mountain to the private sector.
While the land would remain state owned, the government is seeking “suitably qualified entities” to take over the commercial and essential services of the resorts in their entirety.
