Gillett set out to change this environment, emphasizing the simple principle "the customer is king." One of the first areas he attacked was training. Gillett personally led every employee training program at the Vail resort, as well as additional training programs for city employees, restaurant workers, bus drivers, and cab companies. He arranged to have television crews follow several families on a Vail vacation--from the moment they made their reservations until they left the resort for home--and then showed a film of these trips to Vail's management. Among the problems they discovered was the lack of a central reservations system; the high incidence of lost baggage at the airport; long lines at ticket windows and lifts; and the lack of children's activities after skiing.
From 1985 to 1989, the company invested $60 million in capital improvements. Part of this sum went to the China Bowl Expansion, which opened up an immense new area of advanced terrain on the back side of the mountain, in the process doubling the resort's skiable terrain to 3,787 acres. With the addition of China Bowl, Vail became the country's largest ski resort, surpassing the former leader, Mammoth Mountain in California. By 1989, it had also installed six high-speed quad lifts (with four-person chairs), which, though costing several million dollars each, considerably reduced lift lines. For children, the company opened a kids-only hill, which included Ft. Whippersnapper, an adventure park with mock hunting camps and an Indian village. Remarkably, by 1989, all the condominiums in Beaver Creek were occupied.
The readers' poll of Ski magazine rated Vail the top resort in North America three years in a row--1989, 1990, and 1991--and the company also set attendance records, with some 1.5 million "skier visits" each year at Vail Mountain and more than 400,000 at Beaver Creek. Capital improvements continued, as Vail constructed a public bobsled course in 1990 and installed its tenth high-speed quad in 1992. By 1993, it had 4,020 acres of skiable terrain and a total of 25 lifts. Vail was also the host of the 1989 World Alpine Ski Championships, an event that hadn't been held in the United States since 1950. The event gave Vail extensive international press coverage, which Vail Associates hoped would encourage skiers from other countries to visit the resort.
However, while Vail thrived, its parent, Gillett Holdings, was collapsing under the weight of failed junk bonds (high-risk, high-yielding debt certificates), issued in the 1980s to finance its acquisitions. The holding company filed for bankruptcy on June 25, 1991, and its eventual reorganization transferred the ownership of Vail Associates to Apollo Ski Partners LP of New York, a company headed by Leon Black, a former Drexel Burnham banker. Nevertheless, George Gillett continued to serve as chairman of Vail Associates.