Early season snowfall raises trade's hopes of bumper ski season
Rob GillThis month’s healthy early season snowfall across the Alps couldn’t have come at a better time for the ski industry, leaving agents and operators’ phones ringing off their hooks and websites struggling under the weight of increased traffic.
More than a metre of snow is already understood to have fallen is some areas with more forecast for this week allowing resorts in France, Austria, Italy and Switzerland to open early while providing a solid foundation for a strong season.
There was also a reassuring familiarity to this surge in sales, it seemingly marking a return to more normal pre-Covid booking patterns, with Skiworld sales and marketing director Diane Palumbo likening it to "putting on an old pair of slippers". "Customers have always reacted to good snow and it’s normal for them to wait for snow,” she told TTG.
"This is like a return to those pre-Covid booking patterns. It’s quite reassuring to see the huge effect it’s had on both our bookings and enquiries over the past week. This is quite different from last year when demand was very frenetic and certainly not normal.”
Where to find snow-sure resorts this winter
Full Circle Travel’s Niall Douglas has also seen the immediate benefit of the unusually good early snow, particularly after the comparatively poor conditions that characterised the early weeks of the 2022/23 season, which may have put off some customers from booking for this winter.
"We had a fairly terrible start to the season last year so a lot of people decided to wait and see about this year,” said Douglas. “Now we’ve got a flurry of late bookings, the snow has triggered quite a lot of interest for travelling in early and mid-December. I’ve just booked a group of eight going on 12 December to Club Med in Val Thorens.”
The snow has been so good in certain parts of the Alps that some big-name resorts have decided to open several weeks earlier than originally planned, including Austria’s Kitzbuhel, Tignes in France and Verbier in Switzerland.
Oxford Ski Company’s chief executive Rupert Longsdon said that while these early resort openings were only likely to benefit local skiers in the short-term, the excellent early snow had given an overall boost to the UK market.
“The snow came at exactly the right time as we had a lot of customers who were reticent about booking in October, but now this has given them the kick to decide to go skiing,” he added.
The snow has also arrived at an opportune moment to help boost the Christmas and New Year ski market, which still has some availability according to winter sports specialists, although value remains key, as it was back in the summer.
Simon McIntyre, managing director of ski at Iglu, said: “The recent snow in the Alps has had a material impact on site visits and enquiries with a surge or demand from ski customers.
"Catered chalets are trending – they’re great value in the current climate and while there aren’t as many in the marketplace, the ones that are available are being snapped up. This is something we didn’t see last season.”
Skiworld’s Palumbo agreed about the strong demand for chalets for this winter as customers look to budget more carefully owing to the cost of living squeeze. The operator is also opening some of its chalets a week earlier to meet this demand.
“People are looking for an all-in price and chalets are still the number one seller for us,” said Palumbo. “They know this is the cost and can budget for that. That’s not really the case with hotels where you can end up spending a lot of extra money.”
’Creating a lates market’
Oxford Ski’s Longsdon has also seen customers becoming more cautious about what they are spending on ski holidays this season.
“They’re being impacted by cost of living and we are getting more questions about what they are getting for their money,” he said. “Whereas last winter, they were just saying ‘let’s go away’ after not being away for several years.
"This year, they are being clever about spending money so they might be looking at going for the week before Christmas – they don’t want to spend more than they need to.”
For Iglu, this trend has seen destinations like Italy become more popular because of the value they offer and the reasonable cost of lift passes, while all-inclusive packages offer “a great way to budget and plan” for customers.
Neil Lodge, director of commercial at Inghams Ski, said its main trends for this winter included “very strong bookings” for resorts in France, Austria and Italy.
“We’ve also had a really strong booking period over the past few weeks since the snow has arrived across European resorts, this has also contributed to some strong traffic on the website,” he said.
Of course, everybody’s fingers are crossed the excellent snow conditions endure and there is no repeat of the very warm Alpine weather experienced during the early stages of last season.
“There’s still huge pent-up demand from people who didn’t ski during Covid,” added Full Circle’s Douglas. “Some clients are taking two or more ski holidays this season.
"What this good early snow does is to create a lates market for both early and very late in the season. Even though we have seen people tightening their purse strings, there are still some great deals for New Year.”
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