After fearing a second blank year, after having opened their ski lifts under unfortunate auspices, after having faced the lack of seasonal workers and the Covid-19, mountain professionals are preparing to conclude the winter season with triumphant press releases. Attendance reached peaks in the French mountains, supported by favorable weather.
“The season is good, with 4% more skier-days compared to the average of the last three seasons, excluding Covid-19”, announces Alexandre Maulin, President of French Ski Areas. These figures, drawn up before the Easter holidays, represent 90% of the winter season: the performance of Savoyard high-altitude resorts open for “spring skiing” (Val-Thorens, La Plagne, Les Arcs, in particular) can further modify this data at the margin.
After a complicated start to the season due to the application of the health pass and the absence of Britons at Christmas, the mountain industry benefited both from a catch-up effect on the part of ski enthusiasts and from particularly happy.
The sun lit up the slopes for most of the winter, bringing local and last-minute customers on weekends; no massif, apart from the Southern Alps, experienced any snowfall problems, thanks to early snowfalls and low temperatures favoring the maintenance of artificial snowfall; the winter vacation calendar was evenly distributed between France and the main foreign customers, which made it possible to fill the beds for four weeks; finally, the closure of many “sun” destinations, for health or political reasons – Guadeloupe, Martinique – may have benefited the mountains.
A rising accommodation occupancy rate
Compagnie des Alpes, the giant in the sector, is benefiting from this: the turnover of its ten ski areas amounted to 392 million euros at March 31, i.e. 11% better than three years ago, comparable scope. The number of its passes sold is down 5%, which is attributed to the absence of the British for a month, but the average income per skier compensates for it.
Already very well compensated for the closure of the ski lifts last winter – some even generated positive operating results without functioning – the ski areas are the winners of the sequence, given the catch-up effect and the postponement of stays canceled due to the pandemic.
You have 58.6% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.