Kitzbühel region spends 70 million Euros on new season improvements

The giant Kitzbühel ski region which has grown to be one of the world’s biggest interchangeable lift pass areas with more than 1060km of lift linked pistes has announced a €70m spent on upgrades this winter. The Kitzbüheler Alpen AllStarCard ski pass expanded last season and now covers more than 1,000km of pistes in 10 ski regions including Kitzbühel, the SkiWelt, Saalbach-Hinterglemm, Zell am See, St. Johann in Tirol and others with 350 ski lifts in total included. It’s one of the world’s biggest.

Kitzbühel will stage the famous Hahnenkamm downhill race from January 22nd – 24th. First staged in 1931 this month’s race will mark the 70th running of the race. The Hahnenkamm is Austria’s biggest annual sporting event attracting at least 50,000 fans to the slopes.

There were great skiing conditions on the European glaciers on Monday. The recent cold weather left the snow in excellent condition, especially across Austria.Many glacier resorts opened more lifts over the weekend.

Kitzbuhel in Austria recorded their earliest ever opening this weekend. A small area was opened for skiing on Saturday after exceptional early-season snowfall.

All of our reported Australian resorts are now closed for snowsports.

Kitzbuhel in Austria is the highest profile ski resort yet to open (very) early for winter 2009–10 as the ski season catches everyone by surprise by starting two months ahead of schedule!

Cold weather across much of the northern hemisphere, bringing with it heavy snow in some cases, or simply low enough temperatures for the snow guns to operate long enough to build up a good base for the ski runs has allowed over a dozen resorts to open early in Canada, the US, Austria, Italy, France and Switzerland as well as Scandinavian countries.

Snow has also been reported in the Indian Himalayas, the Japan Alps and the Spanish Pyrenees, where Formigal and Baqueira Beret both reported six inches of pre-season snow in the past few days.