Viad Corp (VVI): History, Ownership, Mission, How It Works & Makes Money

Viad Corp (VVI) just delivered a record third quarter in 2025, but are you clear on which strategic pivot is driving this kind of performance after shedding its other segments?

The company's renewed focus on experiential leisure through its Pursuit segment is the engine, posting Q3 revenue of $241.0 million and raising full-year 2025 Adjusted EBITDA guidance to a range of $116 million to $122 million, signaling a clear path to higher-margin growth.

This success isn't just organic; it's grounded in a clear 'Refresh, Build, Buy' strategy, including a $111 million acquisition of Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa in 2025, which defintely shows their commitment to their new business model.

If you want to understand how a company navigates a major business model shift while delivering a record quarter, you need to see how Viad Corp's history, ownership, and core mission align to make money in this dynamic travel market.

Viad Corp (VVI) History

You're looking at Viad Corp, and honestly, to understand its current focus on live events and experiential travel, you have to look back nearly a century. This isn't a simple tech startup story; it's a complex corporate evolution from a bus company to a diversified conglomerate, and finally, to a services-focused entity with two distinct growth engines: GES and Pursuit. The company you see today is the result of multiple, deliberate spin-offs and re-brandings.

The core takeaway is this: Viad Corp is a master of corporate transformation, shedding its past-from Greyhound buses to Dial soap-to focus on high-margin, experience-based businesses, a strategy that is paying off with the Pursuit segment's strong 2025 performance.

Viad Corp's Founding Timeline

Year established

The company's lineage starts in 1926 with the formation of the Motor Transit Corporation, which quickly became the iconic Greyhound Corporation.

Original location

Initial operations began in Hibbing, Minnesota, though the corporate headquarters later moved to Chicago, Illinois, and eventually to Phoenix, Arizona, as the company evolved through its various iterations.

Founding team members

The central figure in consolidating the early, independent bus lines to form the foundation of what became Greyhound was Carl Eric Wickman.

Initial capital/funding

Specific initial capitalization figures from 1926 are difficult to pinpoint precisely, but the foundation was built through the consolidation of several smaller, independent bus operators, effectively pooling their existing routes and resources to create a larger network.

Viad Corp's Evolution Milestones

Viad Corp's Transformative Moments

The most crucial shifts in Viad Corp's history weren't just name changes; they were fundamental strategic pivots that changed the business model entirely. The decades-long transition from a transportation giant to a services company is defintely a case study in corporate reinvention.

The 1996 spin-off of the highly recognizable Dial soap and consumer goods business was pivotal. It allowed the company to concentrate capital and management attention on its business-to-business exhibition services (GES) and the fledgling travel and recreation operations, which is now the high-growth Pursuit segment.

Here's the quick math on the current focus: the company's full-year 2025 Adjusted EBITDA guidance was raised to between $116 million and $122 million, a substantial growth projection from the prior year, driven largely by the Pursuit segment.

• Exit from Transportation: Divesting Greyhound in 1990 was the first major step away from a capital-intensive, low-margin industry.
• Focus on Services: The 1996 renaming to Viad Corp and the spin-off of Dial Consumer Products created a pure-play services company.
• Strategic Build-out of Pursuit: The company has aggressively scaled its experiential travel segment. In 2025 alone, Pursuit invested $124 million in acquisitions, including the $111 million purchase of Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa in Costa Rica, cementing its global growth trajectory.
• 2025 Performance Validation: Pursuit's Q3 2025 revenue hit $241.0 million, up 32.2% year-over-year, validating the long-term strategy of focusing on unique travel experiences.

This history provides the context for understanding the current financial health of the company. You can dig deeper into the numbers here: Breaking Down Viad Corp (VVI) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors

Viad Corp (VVI) Ownership Structure

The ownership structure of Viad Corp, which officially relaunched as Pursuit Attractions and Hospitality, Inc. (NYSE: PRSU) on January 2, 2025, is heavily concentrated among institutional investors, a common trait for a pure-play, publicly traded company. This shift, following the sale of the GES business, simplified the capital structure and focused governance on the high-growth attractions segment.

Given Company's Current Status

As of November 2025, the entity is no longer operating under the Viad Corp name with the VVI ticker. It is a standalone, publicly traded company, Pursuit Attractions and Hospitality, Inc., trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol PRSU. This transformation, completed on December 31, 2024, positioned the company as a leader in experiential travel, backed by a significant capital injection from the $535 million sale of the GES business. [cite: 1st search: 10, 15]

The company also simplified its capital structure by mandatorily converting all 5.5% Convertible Series A Preferred Stock held by Crestview Partners into approximately 6.7 million shares of common stock on December 31, 2024, eliminating an annual cash dividend of $8 million. [cite: 1st search: 14]

Given Company's Ownership Breakdown

Institutional funds hold the vast majority of the company's approximately 28 million total common shares outstanding, driving the corporate governance and strategic direction. [cite: 1st search: 10, 14]

Here's the quick math: Institutional ownership is dominant, which means major investment firms are the primary stakeholders influencing board decisions. One key player is Crestview Partners, which, following the preferred stock conversion, became a major common shareholder, owning approximately 23.60% of the company. [cite: 2nd search: 4]

For more detail on who is buying and selling, you should read Exploring Viad Corp (VVI) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

Given Company's Leadership

The leadership team steering the company through its 2025 transition is focused on accelerating the 'Refresh, Build, Buy' growth strategy for the attractions and hospitality business. This is a lean, experienced team. Honestly, a focused leadership team is defintely what you need after a major corporate separation.

• David Barry: President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He assumed the role on December 31, 2024, transitioning from his previous role as President of the Pursuit business since 2015. [cite: 1st search: 10]
• Michael "Bo" Heitz: Chief Financial Officer (CFO). He officially assumed the CFO role in March 2025, bringing deep finance and strategic experience from his decade at Vail Resorts. [cite: 1st search: 9]
• The Board of Directors was reduced to seven members, with six of them being independent, which is a strong governance signal for a public company. [cite: 1st search: 10]

The executive team has been actively signaling confidence in the new direction, with CEO David Barry purchasing shares in the open market as recently as November 2025. [cite: 2nd search: 1, 3] This demonstrates a clear commitment to the company's future as a pure-play attractions and hospitality leader, which is expected to deliver full-year 2025 Adjusted EBITDA guidance between $116 million-$122 million. [cite: 1st search: 4]

Viad Corp (VVI) Mission and Values

Viad Corp's mission and values have undergone a significant, clarifying change following the sale of its GES segment in late 2024, now focusing singularly on delivering extraordinary, high-margin travel experiences through its new identity, Pursuit Attractions and Hospitality, Inc. This strategic pivot maps its cultural DNA directly to the experiential economy, driving a guest-obsessed approach to growth.

Given Company's Core Purpose

The core purpose of Viad Corp, now operating as Pursuit Attractions and Hospitality, Inc. (PRSU), is to be a world-class leader in the attractions and hospitality sector. This means creating and operating irreplicable, high-return experiences in iconic global destinations, shifting the company from a diversified conglomerate to a pure-play experiential travel company.

This singular focus is the engine behind their financial targets. For instance, the company raised its full-year 2025 adjusted EBITDA guidance to a range of $116 million to $122 million, reflecting the momentum of this experience-driven strategy. You can see how this focus impacts the balance sheet by Breaking Down Viad Corp (VVI) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors.

Official mission statement

While the company does not publish a single, formal mission statement, its strategic objectives clearly outline a three-part purpose that guides all capital allocation and operational decisions:

• Deliver Exceptional Experiences: Provide unique and enriching moments for every customer.
• Achieve Sustainable Growth: Focus on long-term expansion through responsible business practices.
• Create Stakeholder Value: Generate returns for shareholders, employees, and local communities.

The goal is simple: make sure every guest leaves with a memory they can't defintely get anywhere else.

Vision statement

Viad Corp's vision is closely tied to its growth strategy, aiming for market leadership in the experiential travel space. This vision is executed through the company's 'Refresh, Build, Buy' strategy, which fuels expansion by reinvesting in existing assets, developing new attractions, and acquiring one-of-a-kind businesses.

• Establish Market Leadership: Become the premier operator of attractions and hospitality in iconic destinations.
• Drive Innovation: Continuously enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty through new offerings.
• Prioritize Sustainability: Reduce environmental impact and promote responsible tourism in sensitive locations.

Given Company slogan/tagline

The company does not prominently feature a specific, corporate-wide slogan or tagline in its formal communications. Instead, the core message is embedded in the brand name of the operating segment: Pursuit, which encapsulates the drive to seek out and deliver unforgettable, high-quality experiences.

Viad Corp (VVI) How It Works

You're looking at Viad Corp (VVI), but you need to know that the company fundamentally changed at the start of 2025. Following the sale of its GES business for $535 million, Viad Corp is now a pure-play attractions and hospitality company, operating solely as Pursuit Attractions and Hospitality, Inc. (Pursuit), though the VVI ticker may still be referenced in some legacy systems.

The company now operates by acquiring, developing, and managing a collection of high-margin, unique experiential travel assets-like lodges and attractions-in iconic, often capacity-constrained, natural destinations across the US, Canada, and Iceland. They make money by driving high visitation and maximizing guest spending through vertically integrated offerings, essentially selling you the room, the food, and the activity all in one place.

Pursuit's Product/Service Portfolio (as of November 2025)

Pursuit's Operational Framework

Pursuit's operational model is built on a 'Refresh, Build, Buy' strategy, which is how they deploy capital to expand their portfolio and drive high returns. This strategy is defintely the core of their value creation.

• Refresh: Invest in existing properties to elevate the guest experience and increase pricing power, like upgrading rooms or dining options to boost same-store revenue per available room (RevPAR).
• Build: Develop new, high-return attractions or lodging near existing assets to create a 'collection' effect, allowing for cross-selling and better asset utilization.
• Buy: Acquire unique, hard-to-replicate assets, such as the 2025 acquisition of the Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa in Costa Rica for $111 million, which provides counter-seasonal cash flow.

The operational process focuses on maximizing the guest journey, which directly translates to maximizing revenue. For example, in Q3 2025, Pursuit reported a record quarterly revenue of $241.0 million, driven by a 33% year-over-year increase in attraction ticket revenue and a 42% increase in lodging room revenue, showing that the integrated model works. They focus on yield optimization, which means dynamically pricing tickets and rooms to match demand, and using their scale to manage costs effectively across their collections.

Pursuit's Strategic Advantages

The company's success comes down to owning assets that simply cannot be replicated, plus having the financial muscle to expand them. You can learn more about the company's direction by exploring the Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of Viad Corp (VVI).

• Irreplaceable Asset Portfolio: Ownership of attractions and lodging in iconic, high-barrier-to-entry locations like national parks and world-class destinations (e.g., Banff, Glacier, Iceland). This limits competition and allows for premium pricing.
• Financial Strength for Growth: The GES sale provided a significant cash infusion, resulting in total liquidity of $274.4 million as of September 30, 2025, with a low net leverage ratio of 0.7x. This balance sheet strength fuels the 'Refresh, Build, Buy' strategy.
• Vertically Integrated Collections: Operating the lodging, attractions, and food/beverage within a geographic area creates a captive market. This drives higher spending per guest and gives them an adjusted EBITDA margin that expanded to 49% in Q3 2025, reflecting scalable operations.

Here's the quick math: Management raised the full-year 2025 adjusted EBITDA guidance for Pursuit to a range of $116 million to $122 million. This projected growth, which is a substantial increase from 2024, is a direct result of capital deployment into these unique, high-yield assets and the operational leverage gained from the integrated model.

Viad Corp (VVI) How It Makes Money

Viad Corp, which transitioned into a pure-play experiential travel company on December 31, 2024, now generates all its revenue through its single operating segment, Pursuit Attractions and Hospitality, Inc. (Pursuit). This revenue comes from selling premium, integrated experiences-like attraction tickets, lodging, and food and beverage services-in iconic, often capacity-constrained, natural destinations across North America and Iceland.

Viad Corp's Revenue Breakdown

Following the sale of the GES segment, Viad Corp's revenue is now entirely attributable to Pursuit. The business model is built on integrating high-margin attractions with lodging and ancillary services, which drives higher per-visitor spending. Here is the breakdown of the key revenue streams within the Pursuit segment, based on the company's dual focus on attractions and hospitality.

Business Economics

Pursuit's economic engine is fundamentally driven by its ownership of irreplaceable assets in high-demand locations, which allows for strong pricing power and high margins. This model is capital-intensive but yields significant operating leverage (where a small increase in revenue leads to a larger increase in profit).

• Yield Optimization: The company uses sophisticated pricing strategies, or yield optimization, which resulted in attraction ticket prices being up 11% and lodging Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) growing 9% in the second quarter of 2025.
• Integrated Experience: By owning both the attractions (like the Banff Gondola or Sky Lagoon) and the lodging, Pursuit can cross-sell services, increasing the total revenue per guest. This is a defintely smart way to capture more of the travel dollar.
• Growth Strategy: The 'Refresh, Build, Buy' strategy is the core capital allocation plan. The company is investing between $38 million and $43 million in organic growth capital expenditures in 2025 alone, focused on refreshing existing assets and building new ones, plus it invested $124 million in acquisitions in 2025, including the Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa.
• High Margins: The business is structured for high flow-through, which is why the Q3 2025 adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to a remarkable 49%.

The sale of the GES business in late 2024 for $535 million was a strategic move that fundamentally reset the balance sheet, allowing Pursuit to eliminate high-cost debt and focus entirely on this high-growth, high-margin experiential travel sector.

Viad Corp's Financial Performance

The financial performance in 2025 reflects the strength of the pure-play Pursuit model and the recovery of key markets like Jasper National Park, which was impacted by wildfires in 2024. The company is delivering substantial growth, as evidenced by its Q3 2025 results and raised full-year guidance.

• Q3 2025 Revenue: Pursuit delivered a record third-quarter revenue of $241.0 million, an increase of 32.2% year-over-year.
• Adjusted EBITDA Guidance: Management raised its full-year 2025 adjusted EBITDA guidance to a range of $116 million to $122 million, with a midpoint of $119 million.
• Profitability Surge: Adjusted EBITDA for Q3 2025 was $117.4 million, representing a 41.5% increase year-over-year, demonstrating the operating leverage of the business.
• Balance Sheet Strength: As of September 30, 2025, the company reported total liquidity of $274.4 million, which includes $33.8 million in cash, with total debt at $129.8 million.

This financial strength provides the capital needed to accelerate the 'Refresh, Build, Buy' strategy, ensuring the company can continue to invest in its core assets and drive double-digit revenue and EBITDA growth in 2026. For a deeper dive into the company's long-term vision, you should review the Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of Viad Corp (VVI).

Viad Corp (VVI) Market Position & Future Outlook

Viad Corp, now operating as a pure-play experiential tourism company under the Pursuit brand, is positioned for accelerated growth in 2025, driven by its portfolio of irreplaceable, high-margin attractions and lodging. The strategic shift, following the sale of the GES business, has bolstered its balance sheet, allowing management to project full-year 2025 adjusted EBITDA in the range of $116 million to $122 million, reflecting substantial year-over-year growth. This focus capitalizes on the sustained consumer trend of prioritizing unique, authentic leisure experiences over generic travel.

You can see the clear focus on the high-margin Pursuit business. Exploring Viad Corp (VVI) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why? delves deeper into this shift.

Competitive Landscape

Viad Corp's competitive position is unique because its core assets are in iconic locations with high barriers to entry, giving it a near-monopoly in certain markets. For context, while the company sold its Global Experience Specialists (GES) exhibition services business, the competitive landscape still includes major players in both the experiential travel and event services sectors.

Opportunities & Challenges

The core of Viad Corp's future hinges on its 'Refresh, Build, Buy' strategy, which is actively deploying capital for high-return projects. The biggest challenge is successfully integrating new assets and managing the public perception of its dominant market position in key areas.

Industry Position

Viad Corp maintains a highly differentiated industry standing, moving away from the fragmented, low-margin event services sector toward a focused, high-margin experiential hospitality model. The company is not a hotel chain; it's a collection of unique, geographically-protected assets.

• Niche Dominance: The Pursuit segment's strength lies in its ownership of irreplaceable attractions and lodges in iconic national parks, a business model that is defintely difficult for competitors to replicate.
• Financial Health: Post-GES sale, the balance sheet is significantly cleaner, with Q3 2025 net leverage at a conservative 0.7x, providing ample liquidity of $274.4 million to fund its growth strategy.
• Valuation Context: While Pursuit's projected 2025 EBITDA is strong, it still operates at a smaller scale than diversified peers like Vail Resorts, which reported fiscal 2025 Resort Reported EBITDA of $844.1 million. Here's the quick math: Pursuit's midpoint EBITDA of $119 million is roughly 14% of Vail Resorts' Resort EBITDA, showing the scale gap to the industry giant.

The company's future is less about fighting for market share in a crowded field and more about maximizing the yield from its unique, protected assets and acquiring new 'forever businesses.'