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VIENNA: The Alps have long made Europe the world’s top ski destination, but the industry is being forced to duck and navigate the overwhelming obstacles of the coronavirus pandemic and climate change.
The European ski industry generates 34 billion euros in revenue, half of the world’s total, according to Laurent Vanat, a Swiss expert who for the last decade has written an annual report that is the reference resource on the industry.
The massive mountain range that stretches from France, across Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Liechtenstein, Austria and Slovenia helps make Europe the leader in the ski industry.
The Alps alone have “more than a third of the ski areas” in the world, Vanat says, and attract 43 percent of the world’s skiers, more than double the 21 percent of the United States.
The European leaders are France and Austria, which have more than 10 ski areas that attract more than a million visitors a year, according to Vanat.
The industry is heavily concentrated in the large ski areas. The resorts that receive more than 100,000 skiers a year represent “only 20 percent of the ski areas but they represent 80 percent of the skiers,” said the Swiss expert.
Skiing is the most popular recreation in Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and Austria, where more than 30 percent of the population buckle up on skis. But in absolute numbers, they are the Germans.
Skiing is a seasonal sport, as few areas are high enough to boast of snow in summer and few resorts have found the holy grail of year-round activities.
That makes the industry highly dependent on seasonal labor, both for the slopes themselves and for other businesses like hotels and restaurants.
The trade association for French ski areas, Domaines Skiables de France, estimates that more than 120,000 jobs in the country depend on the opening of slopes.
The ski industry has not escaped the coronavirus pandemic – an Austrian resort was one of the first super-spread sites – and restrictions aimed at slowing its spread.
Vanat estimates that the closures that closed nearly all ski resorts in mid-March resulted in a drop of around 20 percent in terms of visitors on average. That meant between € 1.5 billion and € 2 billion in lost revenue for France and Austria.
The melting of glaciers, even in the Alps, is one of the most visible manifestations of climate change and this has helped to generate “real awareness in recent years”, according to Vincent Lalanne, head of the tourist office in Val Thorens , the highest ski resort in Europe. .
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