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Due to the Depression a Lot of Ski Operators Will Be Cutting Their Amount of Luxury Catered Chalets

July 29, 2009 on 6:12 am | In Uncategorized | Comments Off

Partly due to the depression skiing accommodation occupancies fell last season.

This is even with good early season sales and brilliant skiing conditions.

These drops in skiers comes after 5 winters of continuous growth within the skiing industry, and the number of skiers came down from one million in 2008 to less than a million last season.

This is in part due to skiers giving the season a miss, while additional skiers who’d typically have 2 snowboarding breaks, only had one.

Sales for the independent travel sector fell by 15% and a few budget airlines cutting the no. of routes to some airports.

However tour operators saw their reservations reducing by a similar 15%.

Nonetheless, the top companies share of the market remained at 72% and the Alps in France carried on as the most visited destination with around 37% of the market.

Due to this several major ski operators reduced the no. of ski chalets they rent this coming winter.

Luxury catered chalets in particular are going to witness a fall in numbers due to the fact that a luxury catered chalet costs more for the tour operator in terms of employees and lease if it is empty.

It is unlikely therefore we will see the type of ski offers which were available this winter.

Although costs are likely to go up, they probably won’t go up considerably.

The 2009/10 season will undoubtedly pose serious problems for the snowboarding industry that is impacted by the events of the global recession, exchange rate, high fuel costs and large fixed running costs for snowboarding holiday companies.

This winter holidaymakers will be more price aware, which will contribute to a reversal of recent trends which saw a growth in independent travel.