Business Overview: Pursuit Attractions and Hospitality, Inc. (NYSE: PRSU)

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Executive Summary

Pursuit Attractions and Hospitality, Inc. owns and operates a portfolio of iconic, nature-based tourism attractions and lodging properties in and around some of North America's most famous national parks, plus a handful of international experiences. The company traces its roots to Brewster Travel Canada, founded in 1892 in Banff, and operated for decades as a subsidiary of Viad Corp. In 2024, Viad sold its unrelated GES (trade-show/events services) business to Truelink Capital for $535 million and renamed itself Pursuit, becoming a pure-play attractions-and-hospitality company trading on the NYSE.

Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, Pursuit generated a record $452.4 million in revenue in fiscal 2025, up 23.4% year over year, with $117.1 million of Adjusted EBITDA (a 25.9% margin). Its significance lies less in scale than in the scarcity of what it owns: gateway lodging and marquee attractions adjacent to Glacier, Banff, and Jasper National Parks — locations where buildable land and operating permits are structurally limited, giving Pursuit a durable, location-based moat that is difficult for any competitor to replicate.

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1. Core Business Model & How They Work

Pursuit's model is straightforward: own or lease land and concession rights in high-demand, supply-constrained tourist destinations, then monetize visiting travelers through a bundle of lodging, sightseeing attractions, food & beverage, retail, and transportation.

[ Secure Land / Park Concession Rights ] ➡️ [ Build Lodges & Attractions ] ➡️ [ Capture Captive Seasonal Demand ] ➡️ [ Monetize via Rooms + Tickets + F&B/Retail + Transport ] ➡️ [ Reinvest in Refresh/Build/Buy Growth ]

Key Operational Drivers

1. Location Scarcity: Most properties sit at or near the only developed gateways into protected national parks (Glacier, Banff, Jasper), where new large-scale development is tightly restricted — once secured, a site is effectively irreplaceable.
2. Three Lines of Business, One Reportable Segment: Pursuit generates revenue through Attractions (sightseeing experiences, gondolas, tours), Hospitality (lodges and hotel rooms), and Transportation (motorcoach and sightseeing transport), reported internally as a single operating segment.
3. "Refresh, Build, Buy" Growth Strategy: Pursuit continually refreshes existing assets (room renovations, new attraction features), builds organic capacity (e.g., planned 2026 investments in the Jasper SkyTram, Banff Gondola, and new lodge wings), and buys new properties or experiences (the July 2025 acquisition of Tabacón in Costa Rica).
4. Heavy Seasonality: Roughly 79% of 2025 revenue was earned in the second and third quarters, reflecting the concentrated North American summer travel season.

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2. Business Lines & Collections

Pursuit reports financially as a single segment, but organizes its portfolio operationally into geographic "collections" — each a cluster of attractions and lodges around a specific destination.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│      Pursuit Attractions and Hospitality        │
└───────────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
                         │
   ┌─────────┬───────────┼───────────┬─────────────┐
   ▼         ▼           ▼           ▼             ▼
┌────────┐┌─────────┐┌─────────┐┌───────────┐┌─────────────┐
│ Banff  ││ Alaska  ││ Glacier ││Sky Lagoon ││  Tabacón     │
│ Jasper ││(Kenai   ││  Park   ││ (Iceland) ││(Costa Rica,  │
│(~1,220 ││ Fjords, ││(~630    ││           ││ acquired     │
│ rooms) ││~520 rms)││ rooms)  ││           ││ July 2025)   │
└────────┘└─────────┘└─────────┘└───────────┘└─────────────┘

• Banff Jasper (Canadian Rockies): the Banff Gondola, Lake Minnewanka Cruise, Columbia Icefield Adventure and Skywalk, Golden Skybridge, Jasper SkyTram, and Maligne Lake Cruise, alongside roughly 1,220 hotel rooms.
• Alaska: Kenai Fjords Tours and roughly 520 rooms; the Denali Backcountry Adventure is being rebuilt and is planned to reopen in 2027.
• Glacier Park: the Glacier Park Collection of historic lodges and the Glacier Raft Company, totaling roughly 630 rooms.
• Sky Lagoon (Iceland): a geothermal lagoon attraction.
• Tabacón (Costa Rica): a hot-springs resort with roughly 105 rooms, acquired in July 2025 — Pursuit's first Central American property.
• Flyover Attractions (immersive flight-simulation experiences in Canada, Iceland, Las Vegas, and Chicago) was divested to Taiwan's Brogent Technologies for approximately $78.4 million, a sale agreed in January 2026 and completed by mid-2026, as Pursuit narrows its focus to nature-based destination attractions and lodging.

In total, Pursuit's remaining portfolio (post-Flyover sale) comprises roughly 17 point-of-interest sightseeing attractions and 29 lodges, supported by about 2,100 year-round employees and roughly 2,500 additional seasonal staff.

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3. Product Portfolio

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4. Competitive Landscape

Pursuit's own filings describe competition as based on location, uniqueness of facilities, service, quality, and price, and note that it competes locally and regionally rather than against one or two national rivals.

By Line of Business

• Lodging near National Parks: Competes with other in-park and gateway-town lodging operators (e.g., independent lodges, regional hotel groups, and in some cases National Park Service-concessioned competitors). Pursuit's advantage is incumbency — many of its leases and concession agreements have been held for decades and are difficult for a new entrant to win away.
• Marquee Attractions: Competes with other regional sightseeing operators and, more broadly, with the full menu of activities a tourist could choose during a limited vacation window (other tours, other parks, other countries). Differentiation comes from owning the single "must-see" attraction at a given gateway (e.g., the only glacier-adjacent skywalk at Columbia Icefield).
• Transportation: Competes with local tour-bus operators and ride-hailing/rental-car alternatives, though Pursuit's integrated ticket-plus-transport packages reduce friction for visitors who would otherwise need to self-drive.

Pursuit also competes with other travel and hospitality companies for acquisitions of similar destination assets, which can raise the price of future "Buy" strategy targets.

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5. Strategic Strengths & Risks

Competitive Strengths (The Moat)

• Irreplaceable Locations: Many properties sit on leased or concessioned land directly inside or at the sole developed gateway to a national park — land that cannot be replicated by a competitor regardless of capital available.
• Long-Dated Concessions and Permits: Operating rights near protected parklands (U.S. National Park Service, Parks Canada) typically run for multi-decade terms and face a slow, politically sensitive renewal/bidding process, discouraging new entrants.
• Brand Heritage: Over a century of operating history (dating to 1892) under the Brewster/Pursuit name in the Canadian Rockies builds trust with both travelers and park authorities.
• Improved Balance Sheet Post-GES Sale: Net leverage of roughly 1.0x at year-end 2025, well below Pursuit's own 2.0x–3.5x target range, after using GES sale proceeds to pay down debt and fund growth capex.

Strategic Risks & Vulnerabilities

1. Extreme Seasonality and Weather/Climate Exposure: Nearly 80% of revenue is earned in two quarters; wildfire activity (the 2024 Jasper wildfire forced closures and caused impairments) and climate-driven park access disruptions are a recurring threat.
2. Single-Country Concentration Risk, Inverted: International operations (Canada, Iceland, Costa Rica) made up roughly 71% of 2025 revenue, creating meaningful foreign-currency and cross-border travel-policy exposure.
3. Leverage and Capital Intensity: 2026 guidance calls for $121–127 million of capex (nearly double 2025's growth spend) against a $300 million revolving credit facility with $87.4 million drawn as of year-end 2025; covenant compliance is required to keep drawing on the facility.
4. Discretionary Spending Sensitivity: As a leisure-travel business, Pursuit's attractions and premium lodging are exposed to pullbacks in discretionary consumer spending during a recession.
5. Execution Risk on Long-Term Targets: Pursuit's 2030 targets (revenue above $845 million, Adjusted EBITDA above $265 million) assume successful execution of a large, multi-year capex program across several countries.

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6. Financial Overview

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7. Summary Conclusion

Pursuit's business is, at its core, a bet on scarcity: it owns the lodging and attractions that sit at the handful of developed gateways into some of North America's most iconic national parks, assets that cannot be recreated by a well-funded competitor simply by spending more money. That scarcity, reinforced by decades-long concession and lease relationships, is the company's real moat — not brand marketing or network effects. Having shed its unrelated GES events business and, more recently, its Flyover attractions, Pursuit is now a cleaner, more leveragable pure-play on nature-based tourism, with a strengthened balance sheet funding an ambitious multi-year growth program. The biggest forward risk is that this same concentration — in a handful of weather- and climate-exposed, highly seasonal destinations — cuts both ways: a bad wildfire season, a soft discretionary-travel year, or execution missteps on a nearly-doubled capex budget could weigh on results well before the 2030 long-term targets come into view.