ALBERTVILLE: Gateway to just about everywhere

It's now 21 years since the Albertville Olympics, and it's not hard to see the legacy (for example the upgraded RN90 through the Tarentaise or indeed the La Plagne bobsleigh track).

Albertville may struggle to make a claim to be a ski resort in its own right, but has options stretching out in all directions - more here.

Its setting, at the confluence of the Isere and Arly, is a beautiful one.  But one would struggle to describe the town as attractive.  With one exception.  The medieval city of Conflans, just above the town, is quite something:

The Wikipedia guide to Conflans is here.

The Auberge de Costaroche sits just below, and is a budget base for visiting some of the following:

• 30 mins: Brides-les-Bains, with direct access to Méribel and the Trois Vallées
• 30 mins: Areches-Beaufort.  Here's an appreciative write-up in today's Sunday Telegraph
• 35 mins: Valmorel - if you want to be a bit different, you can access the skiing via access via Doucy-Combelouviere or (even more daring), Celliers
• 35 mins: Crest-Voland and the Val d'Arly

PS: If you are buying ski equipment, the Decathlon, just off the RN90, is well worth a stop - both for the range (including ski rando and ski de fond) and the prices.

REBRANDING MATTERS: Méribel, Chamonix and Alpe d'Huez

Val Thorens isn't the only resort having a good think about how it markets itself to a population of skiers that is showing little sign of growing.

In Méribel, there is a move to rationalise things, highlighting the merits (and location) of the various villages in the valley - the excellent Skipedia sets out the background:

The "retro" logo.  Recent versions
have used a more "modern" font

The new identity has an air of Arc 1950 about it

Meanwhile in Chamonix, powered by its ex-Danone marketing director, it's out with the two logos which had previously been sitting side-by-side:

Out

Out

In comes the new, "One Valley, One Brand" concept.  It's one which the smaller local resorts (eg Vallorcine) are able to sign up to.  Again, there is lots more on this via Skipedia.

Click here to see how Vallorcine is using
the new brand identity

Further south, Alpe d'Huez appears to be getting rid of the Domaine des Grandes Rousses label.  It is now boasting about the merits of its "grand domaine Ski".  This has been criticised both for its irregular use of upper and lower case lettering, and for creating potential confusion with Valmorel's Grand Domaine.

If the official website is anything to go by, it looks like the new branding for the ski area will sit alongside the rather good (and rather longstanding) Alpe d'Huez visual identity:

Back in the Tarentaise, a bit of background to what Les Arcs and La Plagne have been up to when it comes to marketing themselves can be found here.

REBRANDING MATTERS: Val Thorens United

"If you're not clear about where you want to position yourselves, 

others will do it for you"

Gregory Guzzot, Director of Val Thorens tourist office

Val Thorens has been thinking carefully about what it is all about, and where it wants to be.  The results is an ambitious rebrand.  Out with the old:

And in with the new: Val Thorens United:

Launched for the 2012/13 season

Gregory Guzzo sets out the thinking in this Skipedia interview, pointing out (i) that the ski industry is reaching maturity and (ii) that it is losing market share to other activities, as the world travel market develops.  

In thinking through what Val Tho was all about, they decided to move away from focusing on being "the biggest" or (in their case) the highest.  Their review included a survey of 5,000 recent visitors:

We didn’t want to define our resort in terms of one group over another.  

The survey showed that Val Thorens combines the best of skiing with the best atmosphere, and that gave us our message.

We are a melting pot of activities, emotions, lifestyles, pulled together by a team spirit.  

We are a unifying, united resort – Val Thorens United. 

Gregory Guzzo (Source: Skipedia)

You can read more about the background in this action plan (in French).  But the Slideshare presentation, given a couple of months ago at a tourism conference, is more accessible.  It's in French too, but in a sort of franglais-management-speak.  Val Thorens United is now a registered trade mark.

As www.valthorensguide.co.uk points out, some things can be lost in translation.   The la neige en couleurs slogan has been translated by the tourist office as "multi-coloured snow".  Ahem.

And the resort's marketing busy-ness does not stop here.  This season, @Val_Tho is laying claim to the #wanttoski hashtag.  It even has a series of YouTube videos to go with the campaign:



The excellent Skipedia site tells the full story.

***

More about Val Thorens:

Here's how to drive there, via Nick Trend in the Telegraph.

Summer skiing on the Peclet ended in 2002.

Its Premier League partner is Newcastle United.

In December 2011, it was the site of the "Nazi Salute" stag party, attended by Tory MP Aiden Burley.

It is hardly a cycling mecca, but did feature as a Tour de France stage finish in 1994:

NEW SKI SEASON: Dates for the diary

Regular visitors to Les Arcs will see one or two new things in and around the resort, including the new Aiguille Grive Hotel and a mountain restaurant above the golf course. And there's more to come - with a transformation of the slopes above 1800 planned.

Back to this season...

To celebrate 10 years of Paradiski, the Vanoise Express has been given a makeover by designer JC de Catelbajac.  I am not sure that everyone is going to like it.

It's also 10 years since the opening of Arc 1950 - much loved by British travel writers, but not by all the "pioneers" of Les Arcs who see it as out of step with the original vision for the resort.

Les Arcs has taken the plunge and updated its website.  It looks much better, but still feels a little difficult to find your way around.  For example to find the opening dates for the season (14 Dec - 26 April), it's easier to find the information via www.france-montagnes.com.

Key dates for 2013/14 include:

1.  The 5th Les Arcs Film Festival, which runs from 14-21st December, this time majoring on Yugoslav cinema.  A "movie pass" costs €28, although it's not clear whether this will be enough to entice the various British student ski trips (including @SussexSnow) who will be present in Les Arcs during this pre-Christmas week.  (For a bit more background to the film festival, click here.

Sadly, the cinema over the hill in Arc 1800 is no more

2.  The Red Bull Linecatcher "back country" ski competition runs again - I can't find the exact dates but according to the Les Arcs Press Office it will be in January, and one assumes it will be around the middle of the month again.

Bad weather delayed the 2013 event
for a number of days

3.  School Holidays.  Beware.  Here's a guide to how to avoid at least some of the February crowds.  The big half term week for British skiers is likely to be w/c 15 February, the same date that French Zone C (Paris, Bordeaux...) hits the autoroute for their vacances.  And be careful about assuming there will be no-one about in late Feb - the French school holidays continue until the first weekend of March.

4.  The scarily titled GMX Gavaggio Monster Cross will be in town between 4-7 March. This is basically the French youth skicross championships, and will be based in Arc 1800.

The competition will take place on the
Arc 1800 home slopes

MOUNTAIN HIGH, VALLEY LOW: The Price of Skiing

Skiing has never been cheap.  Not least for British skiers, given the distance involved and therefore the need to spend a few days in the mountains.  Witness the sharp fall in Brits taking to the slopes, from 1,227,000 in 2007/8 to 899,000 last year.

In the Telegraph, Peter Hardy finds "budget" chalets for the package holiday skier in Peisey Vallandry, Val d'Isere and the Sella Ronda.  In terms of resorts, he recommends Baqueira-Beret (where you may still see the Spanish royal family), Madesimo and, in the Maurienne Valley, Aussois.

Meanwhile, Where to Ski and Snowboard has taken a systematic view in recent years.  It calculates an a "RPI" for each resort, based on a basket of indicators.  The "average" score is 100, with Ste-Foy (85) and Val Cenis (80) emerging as the best value of the bigger French resorts.

A week's Paradiski pass will set you back €277

For short breaks, the cheapest option is to stay down in the valley.  Bourg St Maurice, is one of the most obvious options, with funicular railway or easy bus access to Les Arcs/La Plagne, La Rosiere, Tignes and Val d'Isere.  (That said, the choice of hotels is limited).  Albertville may not be everyone's idea of heaven, but it's very close to Valmorel, Crest Voland and Areches-Beaufort.  Annecy is a more mainstream and probably sensible base, with Le Grand Bornand, La Clusaz and Le Semnoz close by.

And for the day-tripping skier, the enterprising www.ausommet.fr has put together a handy guide.  The chart the prices being charged by the various resorts.  Note: a significant proportion are owned by Compagnie des Alpes, who, by clever pricing, managed to increase revenues by 3% last year, thereby outpacing the modest 1% rise in skier numbers - more here.  In that vein perhaps, we see that prices are still rising, particularly in Les 3 Valleés, at 57€, beats Chamonix to the "most expensive" prize by 50 centimes.

The costs may be eye-watering, but generally the hierarchy seems reasonable (eg Valmorel's Grand Domaine and La Rosiere's Espace San Bernadino are priced similarly). Bonneval sur Arc comes in perhaps as best value: 24€ for a ski area with slopes from 1800-3000m.

ARC 1800: The Masterplan

This year, Arc 1800 welcomes a new mountain restaurant to the lower slopes above the golf course.  But this is just a starter for 10.  Big changes are on the way, it seems.

Planning permission is being sought for a new Télécabine des Villards, which in turn is part of a master plan involving a new luge track, new restaurants, improvements to the swimming pool and the dismantling of ageing ski lifts.  It's all rather exciting.

The full details can be found via the Avenir et Animations des Arcs page, which includes the plans and timelines the lift company want to work towards.  Here are some details:

Background
- Need to improve the offer of Arc 1800: client needs have changed so must adapt accordingly
- Hence this "unique multi-activity" concept, designed to boost the summer as well as the weinter season
- ADS (the lift company, part of the giant Compagnie des Alpes is investing €28.6m in the plans

Objectives
- Give clients more options in the 17h-19h window - they expect this now
- Reorganise the front de neige to better manage skier flow
- Better organise facilities for non-skiers and beginners
- Develop this multi-season, multi-activity offer: all types of snowsports, swimming, restaurants, golf, tennis, VTT...
=> Attract a wider public...a place where nature is preserved...where one can be active or contemplatif...a place full of life, a lung for the resort....

What will it include?
- A piste de luge
- A new covered Centre Aqualudique - this is being funded by the commune rather than ADS.  It will include waterslides, sauna, snack bar etc.  The outdoor pool will stay
- A "zone ludique" - basically a sort of snowpark with rails, jumps, runs through the trees
- Beginners' area just below the summit of the new télécabine
- Zone ski tranquille - which will follow much of the current home run from the Transarc mid station, but taking a more winding route
- A restaurant "base" - again just below the summit of the Villards télécabine.  This will include various facilities including HQ of the Golf des Arcs in Summer
- A kids' area at the front de neige in front of the Tournevelles building below the Vagere

Arc 1800 front de neige

Integral to all this are a number of new lifts
- The Télecabine des Villards
- At last...a new "liaison interurbaine" lift to the Chantel/Edenarc (I imagine this means it will be a covered lift like the Telemetro at La Plagne rather than a conventional ski lift)
- Another link (from the Vagere lift) to take people the short distance up to the Centre Aqualudique

The outdoor pool survives, but will be joined by an indoor
facility with water slides, sauna, snack-bar etc

Avenir et Animations des Arcs point out that summer 2014 holidays could well be disturbed by building works.  Alongside the construction of the new lifts, the current Villards and Carreley telesieges will be withdrawn from service.

It only gets a couple of lines, but perhaps the most exciting thing in here for keen skiers is the plan for a new Carreley lift, which will take Arc 1800 skiers directly to the Arc 2000 valley.  This is scheduled for December 2015.

I'm trying to find more details of the likelihood of these plans all happening, and whether they will run to what looks like quite an ambitious timescale.  There is nothing on the official Les Arcs site, and there appears to be little or no web chatter (for or against) the plans.  But given the commune is down to put its money into the new pool, a new restaurant is already in place on the site for this season, and that the ADS are clearly ready to invest so much in the scheme, it must go down as probable rather than improbable.

SKI SEASON 2013/14: The French Market

Last season was the year when the British ski market finally halted its decline, although it remains well below pre-Crisis levels.

France remains the most popular destination for skiers this side of the Channel, and of course it has not been immune from the market conditions - for example in Les Arcs, the Edenarc development has taken an age to get off the ground.

Here are some of the current dynamics in the French market:

New Developments

Many of the larger resorts are continuing to invest in their infrastructure, for example in La Plagne, where there will be a new Montalbert telecabine for December 2014.  Ste-Foy has a new fast lift going up from the village this season, in Valmorel there are a number of new lifts and a new Club Med as well.

OK, but...

The Compagnie des Alpes, which owns the ski lifts for many of the big resorts, including Les Arcs, reports total skier days rising by 1% last year, with revenues up by 3%.  This of course was against the backdrop of a very good season snow-wise.  The view at the Paris Bourse is that these results are disappointing.

Les Arcs and Peisey-Vallandry's ski area
is now combined ina single entity: ADS.
This in turn is owned by Compagnie des Alpes

For Sale

France of course has many small ski resorts, and one of them is a vendre.  For €550,000, you can become owner of 3 teleskis, a chalet at the foot of the pistes and - drumroll - a piste bully.

Closed

The Pyreneean resort of Puigmal is €5m in debt, and is closing.

Angry

The French school holiday calendar has recently changed, and Easter hols are now much later.  This year, for example, the first zone (C) to break up for Easter holidays does so on 12th April, by which time many resorts will have closed.  Meanwhile, Zone A pupils will be waiting until the 26th until their holidays start.  The French ski resorts assoication is fuming about this and is lobbying the Government strongly.  They say that they are now only getting 2% of their revenue from the Easter season, compared with 8% before 2010.