Bichlorides

In part due to the down turn skiing accommodation occupancies went down this winter.

This is despite of strong early season reservations and first class snow conditions.

These drops in vacationers comes after 7 seasons of development within the ski industry, and the number of holidaymakers decreased from 1.05 million in 2008 to 850000 last year.

This is in part due to holiday makers giving their annual skiing break a miss, and other vacationers who would normally have two or more skiing breaks, merely had the one.

Sales for the independent travel sector fell by 15% with a handful low cost airlines slashing the no. of airplanes to some airports.

Some tour operators saw the bookings decreasing by about the same amount.

Nevertheless, the top 6 companies market share stayed at 71% with ski chalets France remaining the most popular destination with around 37% of holidays.

Due to this many tour operators cut the total number of luxury chalets they run this winter.

Catered chalets in particular are going to see a reduction in vacationers due to the fact that a catered chalet costs more for the tour operator in terms of hosts and chefs and rental when it is empty.

Therefore it’s unlikely that we shall benefit from the deals which were up for grabs this season.

Although prices are likely to augment, prices are unlikely to go up a lot.

This winter beyond any doubt poses grave problems for the ski industry which is influenced by the effects of the credit crunch, exchange rate, increased fuel costs as well as high fixed running costs for snowboarding holiday companies.

Next year holidaymakers will become more cost aware, this shall add to an about face of the trends of the last years which saw a development in independent travel.

[Large-scale ski operators could foreseeable re-gain some of the ground lost to the independent sector if they utilise their buying power to negotiate reduced prices and pass this to clients as attractive deals.

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