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.

SKI SEASON 2013/14: THE BRITISH MARKET

The most comprehensive survey of the British market comes courtesy of the annual Crystal Ski Report, which is now building up a really useful set of trend data.

The good news this year is that the worst appears to be over.  The total number of skiers last season is put at 899,700, up 1% on the previous year, and the first rise since 2007/8.

This will prompt a glass of crémant de Savoie rather than champagne; the numbers remain far below pre-Crash levels.  Back in 2007/8, some 1,227,000 Brits went on skiing holidays.

Still building in Les Arcs...
Big changes to the Chantel area are
planned for 2014/15

France remains its prominent market share, with Austria consolidating and the Swiss starting to get their house in order.

North America is down, although apparently this is the result of a decline in attractiveness of the US; Canada is apparently improving, on the back of some marketing "momentum",

The student market is up slightly; school ski trips are going in the other direction. Bulgaria is down, following Inghams' withdrawal from the country.

The market share figures are as follows (2011/12 in brackets):

FRANCE: 34.8 (34.6)
AUSTRIA: 28.2 (27.9)
ITALY: 15.2 (15.4)
Andorra: 6.6 (6.5)
Switzerland: 5.5 (4.9)
N. America: 4.0 (4.5)
Bulgaria: 2.4 (2.7)

The trends since 2006/7 are instructive (more here).  In a declining market....

• North America's share has halved, from 7.9% to 4.0%
• Austria is up from 19.0% to 28.2%
• Italy is also up, albeit to a lesser extent: from 13.8% to 15.2% 

VALMOREL: Upwardly mobile?

Compared with the big resorts further up the Tarentaise, Valmorel has a different feel. Although the ski area is still pretty big by most standards, it can't compete with the mega resorts beyond Moutiers, and in recent years has been marketing itself to skiers from southern France and Spain.  

In many ways the area is now more noted for summer pursuits.  The Col de la Madeleine is a regular on the Tour de France, most recently in 2013.

Valmorel used to be a mainstay of the brochures in the 1980s and 1990s, but these days doesn't merit a full chapter in Where to Ski and Snowboard - although there is a useful online write up here.

But there is certainly some investment going into the area.

Five years ago, the new Celliers gondola was opened, linking this remote valley with the Grand Domaine:

Two new lifts opened on the Valmorel side last season, and a new "Soleil Rouge" lift over in St Francois is coming on stream for 2013/14.

And the recent arrival of Club Med suggests that investors are willing to put their money into the future of the resort.  It boasts about being the nearest Tarentaise resort to Chambery, Lyon, Paris - and its accessibility is certainly a plus.

We likened Valmorel to Premiership team Reading, who were then duly relegated.  Will Valmorel make a return to the big league during the coming years?  The signs are promising...

NEW SKI SEASON: Where to Ski and Snowboard 2014

The new edition of the skier's bible is out - full details on the Where to Ski and Snowboard website.

Looking at the book's editions through the years enables us to chart the winners and losers - as measured by which ski resorts have been awarded a chapter of their own, and which are relegated to the appendix.

This year's winners - promoted to having their own chapters - are:

France
Les Carroz.  For more about the Grand Massif, click here.
Val Cenis - on the other side of the Col de l'Iseran.  Here's a trip taken by the Telegraph in January 2012

Austria
The little-known Rauris
Zell am See, which makes a welcome return to the big league

Meanwhile, Puy St Vincent (FR), Alpbach (AT) and the resorts of the Trentino (IT) have been relegated to the back of the book.

Other highlights include the heated debate about piste length, with many resorts having been exposed by new analysis showing significant over-reporting of the true size of their ski area.  The most extreme case is apparently Courmayeur, which reports 100km, of which some 64km are, er, off-piste.

There is also an enjoyable rant about the re-branding of various resorts (eg "Val Thorens United, the abolition of the name "Courchevel 1850".  The new "Alpe-d'Huez grand domain Ski" (sic) is the subject of particular ridicule.

A CHAPEL FOR LES ARCS

Updates on new developments in ski resorts inevitably centre on the replacement of Lift X with a new fast 6-pack, or perhaps a new MGM or Club Med development.

Les Arcs has something completely different under construction: a new chapel, due to open next summer at Arc 1800.  It will be on the bend in the road at Chantel, between the covered car park and the Centre Bernard Taillefer.

The idea of a chapel is nothing new.  Back in 1979,  Les Arcs' creator Robert Blanc was clear that the chapel was the missing link in the developing jigsaw.  Recent years have seen open air masses taking place in Place Miravidi at Christmas, and more recently at the Centre Taillefer.

But now the funding is in place, thanks to various benefactors.  And the Chapelle de St-Esprit, designed by Robert Falcoz, is starting to take shape.  Robert Blanc's daughter Claudie Blanc is closely involved.

Local painters are working
on designs for the interior

Full details can be found on the chapel's very professional website.