British visitors to Austria down 14%
Friday June 5, 2009 - Email this article to a friend

Last winter, with a dreadful exchange rate and economic worries, was always going to be poor for some in the ski industry.

Accurate figures are now coming out and confirm what we were saying throughout the winter at PlanetSKI.

The British ski market fell in many places between 15% and 20%.

We stuck our necks out a bit on this as there were few accurate figures around and many in the industry were spinning like mad saying all was well.

The Austrian Economy Minister, Reinhold Mitterlehner, says he expects overall business next year to be down by around 5% but he could not predict how much the British market would fall. He confirmed this week that it fell by 14.2% to 2.9 million overnight stays.

Perfect on the surface but maybe not behind the scenesFor Austria though the winter was not too bad as domestic visitors went up and the main market, Germany, fell only slightly.

The country, like all the alpine nations, was helped by fantastic snowfalls throughout the winter that meant many local people took advantage of the conditions.

The fall in the British market is worrying not just for Austria but for all the countries, resorts and ski operators as it shows how fragile the British ski holiday is.

A recent survey, unveiled this week, by Erna Low and the financial analysts, Cavendish Ware, says prices will go up about 15% next winter and there will be a sharp decrease in the number of package holidays on offer.

“The British people are much more likely to cancel their winter holiday than the summer one,” says Adrian Ware, from Cavendish Ware. “65% of people said the winter holiday would go before the summer one and 32.5% said the economic climate will affect their plans for next winter”.

However it is most certainly not all doom and gloom as the exchange rate is picking up and the industry is reacting to the changing landscape by going to smaller/cheaper ski resorts.

Hammered by the exchange rate last winterParts of the media over-reacted to the threat of climate change a few years ago predicting the end of skiing. In the same way we believe it is important here at PlanetSKI not to over-react to this development.

This is not the end of skiing and in some ways is a reality check for an industry that was perhaps getting a bit too greedy. 

The average cost of a ski holiday is £1,000 per person.  It does not need to be this high. Though of course the exchange rate is out of our control.

At this week’s breakfast presentation by Erna Low we heard some good news from the Managing Director, Jane Bolton.

“Even the French are now realising they need to bring their costs down and are offering discounted lift passes for families and other deals to tempt the British skier and snowboarder.  The French resorts really have been quite smug over the years and were very reactive to changes in the market, but now they are being proactive.”

Here at PlanetSKI we will not shy away from reporting bad news in the ski industry like a few other ski news web sites that pretend everything is brilliant all the time. 

We will though not go the other way and over-exaggerate the position. 

Next winter will be very challenging for the ski industry as some people will go out of business while many skiers and snowboarders will decide they will not be able to afford to ski next winter.

However we believe that if people understand the changes, know how to react to them and learn how to keep their costs down then it will be another epic winter.

For the spirit of the mountains.

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