The Net’s Most Wanteds

Partly due to the credit crunch snowboarding sales fell this winter.

Despite of strong pre season reservations along with brilliant skiing conditions.

These drops in no.s follows on from seven years of development within the ski industry, and the numbers dropped from 1.25. 1.3 million in 2008 to less than a million last winter.

Partly due to skiers giving their annual ski trip a miss, and other holiday makers who would ordinarily have two ski vacations, merely had the one.

Sales for the independent travel sector fell by 15% with some budget airlines slashing the no. of routes to some airports.

Tour operators witnessed the reservations reducing by about the same amount.

Nevertheless, the top companies share of the market rested at 73% and the Alps in France continued to remain the top ski destination with about 37% of the market.

This meant that several major tour operators cut down the total number of luxury ski chalets they run this winter.

Luxury catered chalets will see a a drop in clients because a luxury catered chalet costs more for the tour operator in terms of staff and rent if it is unoccupied.

It seems unlikely that we will see the last minute deals which were available last season.

And costs are in all likelihood to augment, prices probably won’t increase a lot.

The 2009/10 winter beyond any doubt poses grave challenges for an industry which is influenced by the events of the global recession, fall in the value of the pound, soaring fuel costs and large fixed costs for snowboarding holiday companies.

Next year snowboarders will be more and more cost aware, which shall lead to a turnabout of the trends of the last years that saw a development in the ski industry.

Big skiing operators could foreseeable re-gain some of the ground lost to the independent skiing sector if they are able to use their buying power to wrangle better prices and pass this to guests as appealing deals.