THE BUSINESS OF SKIING: The verdict (so far) on 2011/12

It's the final week of the season.  La Plagne is reporting 300cm on top, 125cm at the bottom.  There's been 45cms of fresh snow in the last 7 days and 96/128 pistes open. Despite a dry February and March, 2011/12 has generally seen snow in abundance, and this has to be the best end-of-season for years.

What has this meant for the ski industry?  Many French resorts have been struggling, given the mature state of the market, the high cost of skiing and the ongoing effects of the crisis.  In Switzerland, it's been worse, with the strong franc and an increasingly competitive Austria leaving even star resorts like Saas Fee with a headache.  The official line is that visitors from the eurozone are down, but this has been partially mitigated by the rise in Swiss visitors (for example in the small resorts of St Gall).  The stark reality is that Valais has seen a 6.4% fall in foreign tourists, Grisons 5-6% and at Engelberg 8-12%.

The new(ish) Arpette lift at Les Arcs

If you're interested in all this, the best people to follow on Twitter are: @ausommetfr, @adepierrefeu and @skibatblog, which highlighted this report from Les Echos.  To summarise:

• 150,000 people work in the industry
• Overall, French ski resorts are reporting a 2% rise in skier numbers - after a 5% fall during the poor season that was 2010/11
• It's been a good season for "low cost" resorts like Brides-les-Bains and upmarket resorts like Courchevel (which reports a 6% rise)
• Between the two, the middle-of-the road resorts are doing less well
• One reasonably new "innovation" which is doing well are the 4-hour tickets
• Overall, not too bad.  Now on to see if they can do anything to improve summer visitor numbers.  Which is quite another story

This general view is echoed by the hoteliers.  Their association describes the season as "OK but nothing to write home about".

One to watch will be the results of the Compagnie des Alpes, who have a near monopoly of the big resorts.  These come out on Thursday 26th April.  There's some background here.

In the southern French Alps, which serve a different market to the Northern resorts (Belgium, E and S. Europe, Italy), the initial verdict has been that things are "plutot satisfaisant", which is hardly a ringing endorsement.  

And a pretty similar pattern over in the Pyrenees.  The late start to the season caused problems.  For example, Piau-Engaly lost 30,000 skier days by not being able to open until 18th December (compared with 26th November in 2010).  February was good, but then the weather was warm in March and then snowy just as they were closing....