In Part Due to the Recession a Lot of Skiing Companies Are Reducing Their Amount of Luxury Catered Ski Chalets
Because of the credit crunch ski occupancies went down last season.
In spite of excellent early on sales coupled with first class snow conditions.
These falls in skiers follows six seasons of development in the snowboarding industry, and the number of snowboarders dropped from 1.2 million in 2008 to under a million last winter.
Partly due to snowboarders giving the season a miss, and other skiers who’d typically have two skiing vacations, just had the one.
A fall of 15% was experienced by the independent travel sector with numerous low priced airlines reducing the no. of airplanes to several airports.
However tour operators witnessed their bookings decreasing by around 15%.
Still, the top 6 tour operators share remained at 72% and the French Alps retained its position as the most visited ski destination with 37% of the English ski market.
Due to this many ski operators slashed the amount of luxury catered chalets they lease this winter.
The luxury chalet market will surely witness a reduction in no.s in light of the fact that a luxury catered chalet costs more in terms of hosts and chefs and rental if it is unsold.
It remains unlikely we shall see the special offers that were around last winter.
Although prices are likely to rise, prices are unlikely to go up a lot.
The 2009/10 season beyond any doubt poses grave problems for the ski industry which is influenced by the consequences of the depression, exchange rate, increased costs of fuel on top of large fixed operating costs for snowboarding holiday companies.
Next year holidaymakers will be more cost aware, which will add to a turnabout of recent trends which witnessed a development in the skiing industry.
