“We reopened the nightclubs, I don’t see how we could not reopen the cable cars” : for the Secretary of State for Tourism, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, the question of a “white season” in the mountains does not arise. It remains to be seen how to organize the return of the French to alpine skiing, after a winter of snowshoeing, tobogganing and falls on cross-country skis.
Monday September 20, at the end of a first meeting between the government and the actors of the mountain, the health pass seemed to be obvious. Professionals see it as a guarantee of openness rather than an obstacle to activity: “There will be an extension of the sanitary pass, which will allow us to secure the start of the season”, says Jean-Luc Boch, president of the National Association of Mayors of Mountain Resorts (ANMSM). “It’s a very good thing, it reassures everyone”, adds Franck Gervais, at the head of Pierre & Vacances, the leading accommodation provider for the French mountains:
“As long as it is known, that you can anticipate, it does not pose a problem. “
After a management criticized last winter season, during which professionals had long clung to the hope of a reopening, the government is moving forward this time as on a patch of ice. The bill to extend the health pass will not be presented until October 13. It is in the first half of October that the modalities for reopening the ski lifts must have been specified.
Random checks or when purchasing the package?
Another wish of the Secretary of State for Tourism: to present the health pass as a request from professionals and not as a government request. “Rather, there is a demand on their part, says Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, to have the guarantee that the season passes in the best conditions. Everyone needs to show that we are a safe destination. “
Once this principle has been acquired, it is with regard to the modalities of presentation of the health pass that the uncertainty remains. When purchasing the ski pass? When entering a gondola? Jean-Luc Boch pleads for the least restrictive solution possible, arguing that “Customers will have already been checked at the hotel, at the restaurant, on the plane to come”. “We would like random checks at the bottom of the tracks, as the SNCF does”, he says. A device that is not very intrusive – but potentially inefficient. As for systematic checks, they are excluded from the outset by the mayor of La Plagne-Tarentaise (Savoie):
You have 17.29% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.