The CairnGorm Mountain [Scotland] Ltd [CMSL] accounts for the year ending 31 March 2025 were published in November 2025 (see here). They showed that the business recorded an operating loss of £2,833,280 for that financial year. That’s the day-to-day operating loss and nothing to do with the Capital Expenditures associated with the Funicular Repairs or any of the diversification projects that have been undertaken on the mountain. The operating losses for the period 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2025 are now in excess of £11m.
This is not a case of market failure where a public subsidy is justified to provide an essential public service that would not be provided without that subsidy. Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), the public body that owns CMSL, provides the operating subsidy, by using public money. Why? It isn’t the job of Government or its agencies to subsidise every loss-making business.
Diversification
Many claims have been made of the business diversifying into activities other than snowsports. Over 20 years ago, in 2004, the then Board of Directors Chairman had this to say:
‘’…offering a range of diverse products including evening Dining, corporate events and weddings. A rolling programme of projects on the site, some undertaken by the Cairngorm Mountain Trust’’ [which still exists but is a moribund organisation that has done nothing much for years] ‘’were successfully implemented during the year. These included the CairnGorm Mountain Garden [subsequently allowed to significantly deteriorate until recent times] which allows visitors to see the natural plants of the Cairngorms without having to venture away from footpaths and onto the fragile plateau area. The creation of an art gallery facility in the Daylodge permitted the hosting of a summer exhibition of work by local artists residing within the CairnGorms National Park & new interpretative panels were added to the viewing terrace at the Ptarmigan. In addition, a new corporate meeting facility, the Aonach room was also opened within the base station in July 2003’’.
No information has been published about the success or failure of these diversifications but the fact that Sunset Dining and others have long since ceased to be offered speaks volumes. Some readers may also remember a Xmas Fayre which was equally unsuccessful and discontinued.
Fast forward to 2025 and CMSL have been pursuing a range of different diversification activities as they try to reduce losses and make the hill business financially independent. Recent developments such as Karting, Mountain Biking, Tube Sliding and the Ciste Campervan Park were intended to make the Mountain Resort more of an annual destination with resultant upticks in revenues and help to reduce losses. Why then has a loss of >£2.8m been recorded in the last financial year?
In his report in the latest accounts the outgoing Chairman made reference to diversified activities:
‘’While the main focus was on the Funicular we made great strides in turning the resort into a year-round attraction……..the new Karting downhill ride proved popular attracting over 1500 customers……..mountain biking had over 3000 customers……’’
How then do these numbers relate to revenue and profitability?
Mountain Biking
In 2016, there was a scoping exercise undertaken to determine how Mountain Biking would fit into the Mountain Masterplan. However, nothing was progressed at that time although Mountain Biking was tried from the Ptarmigan to the Daylodge with uplift on the funicular. Participants had to prove that they could ride a Mountain Bike to a standard that would enable a successful descent from the Ptarmigan. That involved riding a bike from the upper Cas Carpark to the lower lower Cas carpark via a loose track at the side of the Tube Slides. This venture was subsequently abandoned.
When a subsequent planning application was made for the construction of Mountain Bike Trails the application stated:
‘’The vision of the project is to diversify the seasonal activities of CMSL by bringing a family-oriented mountain biking offering that is both complimentary to the surrounding tourism sector but attracts additional sustainable tourism and leisure usage of the CairnGorm Mountain Estate’’
The question being…..has the Mountain Bike offering achieved its objectives?
CMSL forecast the following user numbers:
Year 1: 10,408.
Year 2: 11,488.
Year 3: 13,738.
The previous CEO for CMSL would not release the actual user numbers for Year 1 (2024) but the new CEO, Mike Gifford, has eventually been more forthcoming and the numbers for Year 2 (2025) were released via an FOI request broken down by type of pass. The price structure provides for a small discount if tickets for the passes are booked online, with no discount at the ticket window, but at full price the maximum revenue that could have been generated is as follows:
| Type of Ticket | Price | Number sold Year 2 | Income |
| Pedal Pass u-16 | £9 | 1135 | £10,217 |
| Pedal Pass 16+ | £14 | 1242 | £17,388 |
| Uplift Pass u-16 | £24 | 368 | £8,832 |
| Uplift Pass 16 + | £39 | 405 | £15,795 |
| Totals | 3,150 | £52,230 |
Note: Funicular uplift to mid station was only added in July 2025
With the total user numbers being 3,150 and revenue being £52,230 then the average revenue per ticket is £16.58. CMSL forecast user numbers of 11,488 and at an average of £16.58 per ticket then they would have expected a revenue of £190,471. It’s clear that revenue of £52,230 being £138,241 less than forecast is disastrous. As a percentage of total business revenue £52,230 represents just 2.37% of revenue using the average revenues from 2024 and 2025
When we factor in the associated costs for trail construction and maintenance as well as Mountain Bike purchases/maintenance + associated equipment such as helmets, then it is very evident that Mountain Biking has been a costly financial failure on CairnGorm although it cannot be considered to be truly commercial as all upfront costs were provided for free.
Downhill Karting
With 1500 karting customers, as reported in the Annual Report, the revenue generated would be £32 [the cost to each customer] multiplied by 1500 = £48,000. That would represent just 2.18% of average revenue (or 3% of total revenue from sales (£1,699,215) in 2024/25).
By factoring in the costs of the Karts & their Maintenance + Protective equipment/clothing + track maintenance + driving them up the hill (as was happening for a time) + the wages for the guide then it becomes clear that this diversification is no money spinner and in fact will contribute very little if anything to profitability.
CMSL should take heed of the advice offered to customers on their website:
‘’Please note, this activity takes place in an exposed mountain environment and is highly weather dependent. It may be cancelled at short notice due to either poor conditions on the day or due to extreme weather forecasts for safety reasons’’
This shows why user numbers will always be constrained and why 1500 karting visits during the decent summer in 2025 is indicative of another diversification failure.
Discussion
The public are fully entitled to question how public money can be committed to projects at Cairn Gorm that would never be undertaken by private businesses that require a return on the investments made. When the Coire na Ciste campervan park was set up, the CEO at that time claimed that the costs of the wood used to build a fence around it did not need to be included in the overall project costs because ‘’the wood was already onsite’’ [intended for snow fencing]. That showed that CMSL does not use basic Management Accounting was absent and the return on the investment in the Campervan Park was not considered.
It appears that nothing has changed and returns on investments from Mountain Biking and Karting are unimportant. Operating in this way will not lead to financial success as evidenced by the paltry sums brought in from these two diversifications. In terms of the employment benefits created by the family oriented mountain bike trails and Karting, a few winter seasonally employed staff may now be offered year round work…..but…..at what cost?
We should also question the costs and revenues associated with other diversification activities because the continued operational losses being incurred are indicating that nothing much in the way of a commercial revenue is being earned.
How are the losses to be stemmed and turned to profit? The present snowsports season will verify the fact that only snowsports brings significant revenues to the CMSL business. We might question why there is no non surface uplift from the Cas car park to the Ptarmigan despite the well-publicised disadvantages associated with having only the funicular for this journey. HIE could and should have planned, financed and installed appropriate chairlifts during the years when the funicular was out of service as Dave Morris recently argued in the Strathy (see here). Alas, they continue with their funicular obsession and snowsports enthusiasts are left with surface uplift that is all 40+ years old with the inbuilt inefficiencies due to age and the necessity to maintain uptrack fencing and piste the tracks too.
The CairnGorm Mountain business will simply continue to make losses and be an unnecessary burden to the public purse unless and until it focuses on the core business of snowsports, rather than the neglect that has been evident for many years.
This is the end result of viewing visitors to an area as purely a source of money and trying to invent ever more ways of parting them from it at every turn rather than considering what they might actually be going there for and providing it at reasonable cost.
Everyone has a budget, and herding them into “visitor experiences” means every penny extracted there is not being spent in the local community, instead simply disappearing into the sort of vast deficits quoted above.
The idea prevalent for a while that you can simply create a “visitor experience” for no particular reason and sit back and watch the money roll in has been thoroughly debunked and the country is littered with the remains of them. Some are still struggling on but will inevitably succumb.
How is the campervan revenue doing? I commented on their abysmal attempts when it was first set up and I’ve not been back since to see if any improvements have been made.
It seems to me that they key issue underlying the difficulties all these diversification initiatives is a bit overlooked. When asked what are the three key issues that ensure the potential for success in launching such an initiative of this kind, professionals in the business simply reply:- Location! Location! Location!. And that is why the whole effort is doomed. If you want to launch any initiative of this kind for children, older active users, you locate it where the potential customers are, not miles away where you have to drive kids to or mountain bykers etc get to – not halfway up a highly vulnerable mountain where weather conditions are frequently discouraging.Similarly if you want to establish a visitor centre to interpret the area, you place it where the visitors are – not at the top of the mountain you can only reach once you have paid to ascend. You should have locate it as part of the interpretive centre near Loch Morlich where the potential customers are concentrated interpreting the whole environmental span – top to bottom.
Fundamentally, there is no way to make the whole operation on Cairngorm financially viable and so you either continue pouring millions of the taxpayer’s money ad infinitum down this bottomless financial pit or look the horrendous cost and problem of what do you do about not just the funicular but that whole complex of structures and building top to bottom.
The fragile ecosystem of Cairngorm is designated as an internationally important site for nature. Exceptional permission for ski infrastructure on the mountain is tolerable only because it would be impossible at lower altitudes. It is not the place for karting, mountain bikes, or whatever else CMSL find ‘necessary’ to make the failure of the feeble funicular less embarrassing.
At a very slight tangent.
I was rewarded this past weekend while following a notable YouTube creator’s winter trip.
During the 2024/5 winter after sailing the NW passage he existed on his sailing yacht with his wife. They tethered the yacht in an inlet and allowed themslves to become friozen in for 6 months. This inlet is in western Greenland.
This current 25/26 winter the couple are back in his native Finland.
With a pair of like minds, and two dogs, during the past month or so they went to ski across a remote arctic National park.In temperatures hovvering around-10C to -20C they were able to folow marked ski trails between traditional wooden hut encampments. Each hut there is provided by local government and available year- round.
Simply constructed from locally sourced old growth timber, these small buildings are weathertight, and very basic. They have a woodburning stove, basic sleeping platforms, some cooking equipment. These facilites are provided by regional authority,being completely free to use. The Fins believe that encouraging people to take exercise will promote good health and actually end up saving everyone money ! Good for them.
The idea is a bit like Scotland’s mountain bothy movement I suppose, although run in Finland by taxpayer funding for public use. How much the penny pinching UK attitudes differ?
Somewhat similar in some US state parks they offer “distributed camping” where suitable vehicles can camp anywhere within a designated area on a “leave no trace” basis accessed by service and logging roads. It is controlled in various ways, some you can earn access “credit” by doing volunteer work in the park. In Scotland we have miles of logging roads where extraction is not scheduled or has been completed. But low cost, low impact doesn’t generate big revenue or big headlines.
How about a Cairngorm Business School , there is a need if not a demand.