In light of the recession snowboarding sales decreased last winter.
This is even with acceptable early holiday bookings along with superb snow.
This fall in skiers follows 7 winters of continuous growth in the skiing industry, and the number of holidaymakers fell from 1 million in 2008/9 to 900000 last winter.
This is in part due to snowboarders giving their annual ski vacation a miss, whilst other snowboarders who would commonly take two or more skiing breaks, merely took the one.
The independent travel sector fell by 15% with several low cost airlines cutting the amount of flights to several airports.
Some tour operators saw the reservations falling by 15%.
However, the top 6 tour operators share remained at a healthy 73% and the French Alps carried on as the top ski destination with 37% of the market.
Due to this a lot of ski operators reduced the number of luxury ski chalets they operate this winter.
Catered ski chalets will surely witness a fall in vacationers because a catered ski chalet costs more with regards to staff and rent if it is unsold.
It’s unlikely therefore that we will witness the special offers that were around last year.
Although costs are expected to augment, prices probably won’t increase considerably.
The next season doubtless presents serious problems for an industry which is affected by the effects of the credit crunch, exchange rate pressures, higher costs of fuel on top of large fixed operating costs for skiing businesses.