Because of the Credit Crunch Numerous Snowboarding Companies Will Be Slashing Their Amount of Luxury Catered Ski Chalets
In part due to the global recession ski reservations dropped this winter.
This is despite of acceptable pre season sales and superb snow fall.
This fall in skiers follows 6 winters of growth within the snowboarding industry, and the number of snowboarders reduced from 1.2 million in 2008 to under a million last winter.
Partly due to holiday makers giving their annual snowboarding break a miss, while additional holiday makers who would normally have two or more snowboarding breaks, only had the one.
Sales for the independent travel sector fell by 15% with some budget airlines slashing the amount of flights to some destinations.
Tour operators saw their reservations going down by a similar 15%.
Nonetheless, the top 6 companies share of the market stayed at just over 70% and the French Alps remained the favourite ski destination with 37% of the skiing market.
Due to this several large tour operators cut the amount of catered ski chalets they rent this coming season.
The catered chalet markets in particular are going to see a fall in numbers in light of the fact that a catered chalet costs the operator more with regards to staff and rental if it is unoccupied.
Therefore it is unlikely that we will benefit from the last minute deals that were around this year.
And prices are expected to rise, they are unlikely to go up considerably.
The 2009/10 season presents grievous challenges for the ski industry which is impacted by the events of the recession, exchange rate, increased costs of fuel on top of high fixed costs for skiing companies.
Next winter skiers will become more and more price sensitive, this shall add to a reversal of the recent years which saw a growth in the skiing industry.
