Many of Europe’s leading ski areas are breathing a sigh of relief as the season ends and early results are assessed. Six months ago few expected a strong season, given deteriorating economies, fuel prices high although lowering, and currency exchange rates fluctuating wildly.
Media coverage wasn’t helping much either. Along with the general doom-mongering, some ski stories were reminiscent of the exaggerated “No snow in the Alps – global warming spells end of skiing in Europe” reports of two years previous.
Public opinion surveys appeared almost daily, with contradictory results. One survey would say that families planned to forgo their annual ski trip in order to be able to afford a summer sunshine vacation; the next that ski-addicted families would make other sacrifices in order to afford that ski trip.
It seems in hindsight that people did find ways to afford their ski trips.
A huge factor in the season’s outcome was the heavy snowfalls which began in October and were still continuing at the end of April – one of the most consistent snowfall seasons in Western Europe for many years. Resorts say this snow led to a boom in bookings during the traditionally quiet pre-Christmas and January periods, and to a season that lasted weeks longer than expected. As a result of the snow, more than 100 of Europe’s roughly 4,000 ski areas were still open into Spring. Even the continent’s most southerly, Sierra Nevada on the Mediterranean Coast of Spain, announced a two-week extension to its season to mid-May.
Results are just beginning to be published. The continent’s largest resort operator, the French-based Compagnie des Alpes, has announced that although it has posted a small fall in sales to the end of its accounting period on March 31, it expects that by the end of the season (which still continues at several of its 17 resorts, including Chamonix and Tignes), sales will be up 2 percent for 2008-09 as a whole, thanks to a snowy April with Easter in the middle of it.
Compagnie des Alpes Chairman and CEO Dominique Marcel told The Industry Report, “The attractiveness of our sites and quality of our services showed through in the resilience of Compagnie des Alpes Ski Areas, which weathered a difficult economic climate.”
The company believes that two economic factors explain the slight decline in sales to March 31. This year, the Easter weekend and vacations, especially for foreign visitors, came in April. Also the World Ski Championships, held in February at a peak time of the season, adversely affected business for another two of their resorts, Tignes and Val d’Isere.
“Medium- and low-altitude sites, as well as non-Alpine sites, benefited from abundant snowfall. Despite the economic climate, which has been particularly harsh on British customers (20 percent of all Compagnie des Alpes Ski Areas customers), Group Ski Area skier visits should be on par with the average for the past five financial years. Revenues per skier day continued to rise (by about 4 percent), getting a particular boost this year from the reopening of the Paradiski ski area,” said a company statement.
It’s a similar story in other European nations with the classic resort of Adelboden in Switzerland announcing a 5 percent jump in sales from CHF 35 million ($30 million US) to CHF 37 million ($32 million US) in the winter season 2008-09.
“The figures confirm what we have long since suspected: The winter season has been an excellent one. After a successful start to the season the cableway operators recorded high numbers of visitors over Christmas and the New Year. One particularly outstanding high point consisted of the FIS Ski World Cup races held on Jan. 10 and 11,” said a resort spokesperson.
Sunny days were generally only interrupted by periods of intense snowfall, contributing to the perfect winter-sport conditions which have lasted right until the end of the season.
What It Means: The 2008-09 season was OK overall in Europe, but not a banner year. Andorra and Spain, with their best snowfall for more than 20 years, were among the winners. There were losers as well, including some British tour operators who are reducing capacity for 2009-10, and some ski schools, restaurants and retailers pinched by cutbacks in spending by many skiers and snowboarders in Europe, as in North America. Despite these, the season was far better everywhere than if the snow hadn’t come.
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