When he thinks of these “blessed winter weekends”where the snow, the cold and the sun are at the rendezvous, these “magnificent days” full of skiers on the slopes, Guillaume Ruel cannot contain a certain bitterness. ” It is so hard ! So hard to imagine anything else…”confides the director of the Villard-de-Lans and Corrençon (Isère) ski lift company, two mid-mountain family ski resorts.
At this altitude, the effects of climate change are already perceptible, and will only increase. Less stable snow, shorter seasons, more unpredictable weather, more unpredictable operation of the snow cannons…these Christmas holidays without snow were an illustration of this. To compensate for these uncertainties, the ” transition “ is inevitable. “And at the same time, we know that nothing will ever be as profitable as alpine skiing”, continues this thirty-year-old, passionate skier and local child.
This is the problem that is shaking up these mid-mountain resorts, which are ultra-dependent on the ski economy. This dilemma, which affects all the massifs, materializes strongly in these two villages of the Vercors, faced with crucial choices for their future.
Two clans are emerging: on the one hand, those who want to continue to bet on alpine skiing as long as it is still possible, helped by snow cannons, while developing summer activities and new equipment. On the other, those who want to renounce tourism as the sovereign pillar of the territory, and favor the development of another type of economy, more local, more adaptable – even if it means adding low-intensity tourism activities.
Two directions, two visions of growth (or decline) and, in this new battle of the Vercors, a former star, who puts these two mountain resorts in the spotlight: Tony Parker, who bought for 9 million euros the Villard-de-Lans and Corrençon Ski Lift Company (SEVLC) in 2019. Until then, he had never ridden on skis.
If the former San Antonio Spurs basketball player, whose fortune is estimated at more than 200 million euros, placed marbles in this company, it is also because the site gave him the possibility of building a hotel, on building land at the foot of the cable cars. This future “resort” at 96 million euros (900 beds, 21,000 square meters), which would take the place of a parking lot, has become the symbol of a new protest.
You have 75.5% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.