20% less British in the Alps
Tuesday June 30, 2009 - Email this article to a friend

The credit crunch has hit the British skiing industry badly this winter, but next season it’s set to get even worse.

It's one of the biggest topics of conversation out here in the Alps amoung people on holiday and those who work in the industry - the fall in the number of British people skiing and what it's going to be like next winter.

Recently the head of Swiss Tourism, Jurg Schmid, was downbeat about the future. “Concerns are particularly high over the British and we expect a 20% fall,” he told a tourism conference in Zurich.

There’s no reason to assume this won’t be reflected across the other alpine countries.

Hotels hitThe hoteliers have been particularly badly hit as many British people who travel independently have opted to take a discounted holiday with one of the tour operators as they are often cheaper and have been all-inclusive with ski hire, lift pass, and evening meal thrown in.

The Swiss are now actively targeting other nationalities that are closer; the Germans, the French and Italians. The Swiss believe that due to the difficult economic situation and the poor exchange rate the British will stay away.

The remarks by Herr Schmid support all the anecdotal evidence we have seen at PlanetSKI as we’ve travelled around Switzerland, France, Italy and Austria this winter.

Tour operators say bookings are down, restaurants and bars complain that the British are not spending as much as they used to and ski schools grumble that people are not taking so many ski lessons.

“We met an instructor who was bemoaning how quiet it was with very little work around,” says a PlanetSKI reader, James Timothy, from Courchevel this week. “One of the guests in our chalet was in a "group" lesson which had a grand total of three people in it. He was told they might curtail the lessons tomorrow or later in the week if they don't get more clients.”

Even the cheap food is expensive“The exchange rate is dreadful; we got 1.4 Swiss francs to the pound when we changed our money at Gatwick airport on the way out,” says another one of our readers, Keith Henley from Sussex who was in Switzerland last week. “This burger I am eating in the Atelier bar in Verbier is lovely but it’s costing me £20 and it’s only a bar here, not a restaurant.”

See this guide on PlanetSKI for a guide to saving money or you might want to consider taking a bus to the Alps. Our reporter Jane Peel did.

Easter is certainly not booked out despite the record levels of snow we have had this winter.

There are still some amazing deals and discounts and these would not be on offer if things were selling.

Lynsey Devon was Public Relations Manager for Inghams and has just left the company after 19 years. "The future is tough and undoubtedly some ski companies will not be aroud next year I believe as the market continues to shrink, but the ski industry will get through it."

For the full interview with Devon, who has vast experience and a good insight into the ski industry, see the video below.

However it is not all doom and gloom and some specialist companies say business is doing well.

"Our bookings are up on last year, with summer courses in the Southern Hemisphere looking like they are actuallu going to be the biggest to date," says Mhairi Hughes, from the company Peak Leaders that offers courses to train ski and snowboard instructors.

The Peak Leaders course in Argentina"Our Argentina course and our one in Verbier next November are up nearly 50% compared to this time last year. We are definitely finding that people are enquiring a lot more about exactly what is included in the courses - value for money is key," Hughes adds.

In the UK however the economic worries show no signs of going away.

However on home mountains it’s been a bumper season with the Scottish resorts having their best season for decades.

The number of visitors to Glenshee in February was more than four times higher than in 2008.

While the number of visitors to Nevis Range was three times up on the same month last year and visitor numbers at both Cairngorm and the Lecht more than doubled.

"Obviously, we will have to await final figures, but these results are really encouraging and a tremendous boost to the industry and the economy," the tourism minister Jim Mather, told local media

Glenshee had 31,164 visitors in February 2009 compared with 7,163 in the same month in 2008. There were 30,219 visitors to Cairngorm – up from 13,690 in February 2008.

It’s mainly due to the good snow Scotland has received this winter, the best for decades, but also because some skiers and snowboarders have turned to the UK as it’s cheaper.

This trend to holiday in the UK will undoubtedly impact on what was a growing summer market in the Alps.

One in five people who went abroad on holiday last year is considering switching to the UK in 2009 to save money, a new study shows.

Will chalets be mothballed?The assertion came from research by new domestic tourism body VisitEngland.

So, summer business in the European mountain ranges is not looking so good either.

However, the ski world has been through troublesome times before with recession and high exchange rate in the 1990s. Chalets were mothballed and some businesses went under, but when the economy picked up the boom times returned.

The economic indicators appear to say we will not be out of our current plight for a while but things will pick up again.

It will be interesting to see if, and how, the ski world has changed.