Ski Trade Issue 5 - February 2014

E 05 | ISSU 2014 FEB

Is Now The Time For Olympic Glory?

Dave Edwards talks about his role with BSS and what future we can expect for British ski racing

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February 2014 | Issue 05

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Neil McQuoid

Is Now The Time For Olympic Glory?

Chief Executive Of British Ski & Snowboard On His Journey To Improve British Snow Sports

Rob Stewart Co-Editor Dave Edwards is the Chief Executive of British Ski & Snowboard (BSS), and the Ski Trade caught up with him recently to talk Olympics, British snow sports, and the journey so far for BSS. Would anyone really want Dave Edward’s job?

Great Britain is ranked 21st in the world in Alpine ski racing, which is a pretty decent position despite the challenges. We have the world’s second largest outbound ski tourism numbers after Germany, we have professional skiers hitting the podium in international events, yet the sport has little or no government funding.

With a background in business management, Dave Edwards was brought into the newly-formed BSS in February 2010, initially for 6 weeks to rescue and reestablish the organisation from the ashes of the previous set-up.

Almost 4 years later and he’s still in the job. I was interested to hear about what progress he thinks it’s made during that time.

Skiing has been part of Edwards’ life since his mid-twenties, when he decided to take up the sport following a school ski trip several years earlier.

I asked him what his biggest achievement has been so far with BSS. ”We created a new national governing body for snowsports”, he said. ”We formed a company and raised the funds necessary for it to survive.”

Funding is a constant battle and seems to be a topic that always seems to be an integral part of any discussion about British ski racing. I asked Edwards where most of what we do get comes from. ”Forty percent is from UK Sport and the rest is from private enterprise. Companies like Delancey and Sir John Riblat, who are absolutely essential for making this work.

Athletes also fund their own programmes.”

Dave Edwards took over his position at BSS at a time when it looked like we might not even have a British team at all. Not an easy task, and funding from that point was a challenge.

To have British snow sports athletes at the Winter Olympic Games at all is perhaps testament to a good job done, but I wanted to know if he has had any regrets so far. ”Yes, that we have not managed to secure more funding for our athletes”, he said.

Is Now The Time For British Athletes To Take Control Of Their Olympic Destiny?

But I wanted to know how it’s possible to achieve that funding? Will the Olympics help?

Will sporting success drive the market and increase funding? ”It [the Olympics] increases interest and therefore participation. Holidays then drive clothing and equipment sales, but it’s a very complex decision to buy a ski holiday.”

Would winning a medal at the Olympics make a difference? And if a freestyle athlete won a

medal, how would that impact on the sport? As much as someone winning an Alpine medal? ”Yes, it would,” says Edwards ”but remember, choices are different today. People have many options on Sunday afternoons compared to 20 years ago when the Bell brothers were household names.”

”It’s a good investment, and we’ve ensured that financially it works very well for us. I’m constantly asking myself how we keep our admin costs down; we run a tight ship and Sophie and Lucy that work out of the British Olympic Association office do an amazing job – without them, BSS would be nothing’. teambss.org.uk

”We are taking action with Betony [Garner – Media Officer for Snowsport Industries of Great Britain] funded by the industry. This will drive sponsorship arrangements and help position athletes for success. It’s fantastic that the industry is investing in Betony and we also have to invest in athlete programmes.”

Get Involved We’d like to hear from members of the industry, and have created a survey on the Ski Trade website to get your opinions on British skiing and snowboarding.

I wanted to know about the funding, and why athletes at the grassroots level who have clearly got potential to reach the top level are not given what they need to support them as professionals. I asked Edwards specifically about Ben Cavet, and why the British mogul skier decided to race for France.

Go to theskitrade.com to complete the survey.

1.

Should athletes get funding even if they don’t have medal chances?

”He wanted to ski with his mates, he lives in France and that’s where he felt his loyalty lies. You can’t buy loyalty. We need to identify talent and nurture it, we’re now looking forward to what could be our best ever winter games, we think we’ll do OK. I didn’t hear from Ben, so he made his own choices.”

2.

Do you donate money to British ski or snowboard athletes?

3.

Would you consider doing so?

4.

Do you think we will get better results if funding significantly increases, or is it just an excuse?

5.

Will Great Britain ever compete on a world level in Alpine skiing?

6.

How would you improve our funding and medal-winning chances?

”Funding works to deliver medals, but we have to walk before we can run.”

So what’s next? BSS has a new software system that tracks and monitors athletes performance at a very high level.

Our questions are:

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Issue 05 | February 2014

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Register today at www.istm.co.uk

Register today for the premier B2B event for the European ski travel industry Join up to 80 of the top ski tourism suppliers including resorts, hotels and private sector ski properties and 80 leading outbound ski tour operators in a format of pre-arranged appointments taking place over two days in a stunning setting at the A-ROSA 5* hotel in Kitzbuhel.

The mid-season blues Amie Postings Co-Editor

February is arguably the hardest month of the year for everyone involved in the winter sports industry. Back in December we’re fresh and rested. Our excitement levels grow as the snowline descends. But February is families and children, requests and amendments. February is lift queues long enough to keep even the most keen skier off the hill. February is chaos on the roads, and carnage at the airport.

We’ve broken the back of the season now; you’ve surely noticed the days are getting longer, and our mid-season blues are about to be replaced with the joys of spring skiing. You’ll no longer need double thermal layers for après parties, it won’t feel like the middle of the night setting out for those 6am departures, and you’ll forget to compare the lift pass office on a Friday afternoon with that of a war zone. Winter gets easier from here on in, reminding us all why we moved here in the first place.

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It’s an annual conundrum and it never gets any easier. Living year-round in the Alps, I spend 7 months of the year watching the next winter approach.

The snow is on everyone’s mind, all of the time, even on the warmest August afternoon. Yet here we are, mid-February, and there’s a collective ”I’m over it” feeling in-resort. Digging the car out of the snowdrift, created by the snowplough, at the end of my drive is never fun.

Neither is joining a 30-strong queue in my local Carrefour on a Saturday afternoon, the fresh influx of holidaymakers obstructing my quest for a nice (and welldeserved) bottle of vin rouge.

But what’s a winter season without February? A poor one, I’d say. February is the profit month that keeps most resort-based winter sports companies in business. Running at full capacity for 28 long days may well be knackering, but it affords many of us the chance to live in the mountains all year round. February is also the month of the new skier. We’ll welcome first-timers into our businesses, and we’ll collectively do all we can to make sure they fall in love with their winter sport of choice. It’s everyone’s responsibility to increase the size of our industry, here in-resort we play a major part in that objective.

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February 2014 | Issue 05

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Would staggering half-term holidays really make a difference?

The Family Ski Survey Amie Postings Co-Editor Here we are in February, the month of the family ski holiday. Across the Alps ski lessons will be shuffled and nannies will be juggled. There’ll be tantrums on the slopes, and at the dinner table.

Mum and dad will be left wondering … was it all worth it? This month’s industry survey looks at changes and challenges in the family ski market, and how likely they are to affect your winter sports business.

View the full results at theskitrade.com.  58% of survey respondents believe the family winter sports market is currently the same size as last winter. 17% believe it is growing, 17% believe it is shrinking.  58% of winter sports businesses have identified opportunities for growth in the family market over the next 5 years.  The demands of the family ski market are changing considerably. Adaptive services that cater for the specific needs of families, and the different ages of children, are now required.  According to many respondents, the family ski market is more price sensitive than ever

before. There’s concern that half-term price hikes, coupled with schools clamping down on term-time holidays, is making winter sports too expensive for most families. ”The tightening of rules governing taking children out of school had a definite impact on sales in the late-summer and early-autumn”, Chris Thompson, Program Director at Ski Famille told us. ”We saw extraordinary demand for school holiday dates, while January and March departures were slow to sell.” While you can fill your chalet beds, book up your ski instructors, and pack your transfer vans full ten times over during half-term week, the rest of the season lags behind in terms of demand.

While the UK government strictly states that a child’s leave from school is unlikely to be granted for the purposes of a family holiday, parents have experienced a softer approach from headteachers. At infant and junior level the line from many heads seems to be “we can’t give authorised absence, but unless a child has attendance issues, we won’t impose fines”, Thompson explained. Or, as one of their guests put it, ”as you were, but don’t take the mickey.”

And then there’s the issue of price. Many winter sports businesses come in for criticism for hiking their prices during school holiday weeks, when demand is considerably higher than the rest of

the ski season. ”Ski companies generally set their prices based on normal laws of supply and demand. Selling the most popular weeks at higher prices allows us to attract clients for other weeks at lower prices. If schools were to stagger their holidays evenly throughout the season we would be able to set a mid-price for the whole season, and everyone would be happy”, believes Paul Eyre at Chilly Powder in Morzine.

Our survey raised many questions regarding standard and expectations. ”Parents want to bring children but not take any responsibility for them, on or off the slopes” said one respondent. ”There’s a move away from big name resorts to smaller family-friendly resorts, where ski passes and ski hire are cheap, and there are fewer crowds” answered another.

Have your say at theskitrade.com.

Will the market change in the next 5 years?

54% Same Size 15% Shrinking 8% Not Sure 23% Growing

Year-Round Cross-Country Snow-Camp Alpine Skiing With The SkiFIT Club Challenge Gets A Facelift

€1million Compensation Payout For Tignes

Should Accommodation Providers Share Dangers?

Capitalising on increasing levels of participation in cross-country disciplines, Swedish health coach Lotta Sutton has launched the SkiFIT Club. ”Roller skiing is the best way to get into shape all year round. Great Britain is the perfect place to take up roller skiing, with its abundance of country roads” Sutton told us. The SkiFIT Club host roller skiing courses and training camps in Sweden and France, with under-18 roller skiing ladies champion Fern Cates as part of the team. Whether you’re practicing to head for the slopes or not, roller skiing is one of the best forms of exercise available. The roller ski range starts at £155 for the actual rollers, £96 for boots, and £38 for bindings. roller-skis.com

Having hosted the European Winter X Games for the last 4 years, the resort of Tignes in France had grown to bank on the €10m (£8.3m) generated in visitor revenue each winter from the event. When American broadcaster ESPN, owner of the X Games format, pulled all four of its nonUS events on 19 November due to ”economics”, there was widespread disappointment, especially amongst European athletes hoping to use the event for their Olympic preparations. Tignes took legal action against ESPN for loss of earnings, and the resort has received a €1m (approx. £828k) settlement. Only time will tell what impact the absence of the event will have on the wider winter sports market.

With an unstable snowpack, and high avalanche risk across the Alps, accommodation providers are increasingly warning guests of the dangers of offpiste thrills. Avalanche deaths are bad for business after all. Stuart Macdonald at Avalanche Academy recommends caution, ”It’s difficult to know where to draw the line when it comes to warning and advising guests. While it’s essential to point guests in the direction of avalanche safety information, or the details of a qualified mountain guide, are you really experienced enough to recommend and warn skiers yourself?” It’s an interesting question – where do we draw the line in the provision of guest information when it comes to mountain safety?

Have your say at theskitrade.com.

After another hugely successful 150km sprint around the Portes du Soleil in France to raise funds for snow sports youth charity Snow-Camp took place in January; so now tentative plans are underway to develop a bigger and better Alpine Challenge for winter 2015. While the Snow-Camp fundraising events calendar is also under development, the Alpine Challenge is likely to become more accessible to a wider audience, including the winter sports trade. Snowsports Community Manager Dan Keeley told us ”We’re exploring opportunities to vamp up the Alpine Challenge to make it more mass participation for 2015. Keep a close eye on the Snow-Camp website for more information on how to get involved.” snow-camp.org.uk

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Issue 05 | February 2014

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KnowING The CO2 FROM French Ski Lifts, Does it Help?

Patrick Thorne Columnist ISO 14001, the Environmental Management international standard, is a level of a certification top resorts around the world have been striving to achieve for the best part of a decade, but what about article L. 1431-3?

This is an addition to French transport code, which, as of this season, requires ski lift operators (in common with the operators of all public transportation facilities in France) to publish details of how much CO2 their operations produce.

Not a total figure for the company but an averaged-out figure, so that skiers and boarders get a little percentage total that their 1-day pass buys a share of.

The implementation of the new law has been haphazard so far. A few resorts have published their CO2 stats alongside their lift ticket prices for public consumption, but if you saw “Day pass CO2 emissions 400g”, would you know what that meant?

The Sybelles region, with 310km of piste spread across a dozen small areas, was one of the first to clearly publish stats upfront in the early autumn alongside ticket prices.

Emissions ranged from 186g for a day pass, through to 4658g for a full season pass. It is not clear whether the area has taken into account emissions from piste grooming or snowmaking.

Espace Killy has opted to publish its stats in the small print, along with all the other terms and conditions. Item 7 notes that an Espace Killy 1-day ski pass involves the emission of 295g of CO2, which they helpfully explain is equivalent to a 2.1km car drive – so that at least gives you some context … a day of skiing is about the same as the school run back home for a fairly lazy parent.

The lift company, which services the Espace

Killy area, break the figures down further, with a slightly lower level of emission (375g) if you just ski on the Tignes side, so that if you just take a single lift ascent it’s the same as driving 150m in a car.

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If you don’t ski but just ride the lifts with a pedestrian pass, you’ll only cause the emission of 49g of CO2 – presumably because you will not be contributing to piste costs.

Interestingly, using the lifts in the summer is nearly seven times worse, with a 1.8kg share of the emissions, equivalent to a 13km car drive, presumably due to fewer people using the lifts so the economy of scale is lost.

Paradiski, which says that its lifts run on 100% green energy, also has its CO2 emissions at item 7 in its small print, “Le CO2 transport pour un skipass 6 jours Les Arcs/Peisey-Vallandry est de 1387g équivalent à un parcours en voiture de 10km,” … if it’s acceptable to divide that figure by six we get a CO2 figure of 231g per day.

Up to 20% commission for chalet companies

In Val Thorens’ 36-page English brochure on lift ticket pricing, it says, “For the record, the amount of CO2 emitted in Les 3 Vallées … is 319g per day per skier.”

Méribel actually explains how the figures are calculated – they’re based on electricity consumption over 3 years, divided by skier days over 3 years, multiplied by a 5.3g ”emission factor”.

Well, whatever the figures for individual resorts, the good news for skiers and boarders is that these CO2 numbers appear to be very low, so if we forget about the CO2 we generate getting to the resort (and if you really care about that it’s probably best to go by electric trains, like Eurostar, or fill a reasonably efficient car or coach), at least we know that once we reach the slopes we’re likely to generate less CO2 than we do in our day-today lives back home.

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February 2014 | Issue 05

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No Tele On Telly For Us Rob Stewart Co-Editor With the 2014 Winter Olympic Games now in full flow in Sochi, we have the one big opportunity to showcase all categories of our sport – Alpine skiing, freestyle skiing, and a variety of snowboarding and Nordic events, including biathlon, ski jumping, and cross-country.

But there’s one sport that seems to be missing in action when it comes to the Winter Olympics, and that’s Telemark. Snowsports Industries of America (SIA) report that between the 2008–09 season and the 2012–13 season, Telemark skier numbers have nearly doubled, but yet there’s no sign of the sport at Sochi, and no guarantee at this stage we’ll see anything in South Korea 2018.

accessible for recreational skiers to dip in and out of the sport.

The FIS Telemark World Cup circuit now starts in November and continues through until March, with eight events held in Austria, France, Slovenia, USA, Sweden, and Norway. Great Britain hosts the Rauris event in January, which doubles as the British Championships. The format is exciting to watch, and includes a giant-slalom-style race with a jump.

”Not being an Olympic sport makes a huge difference”, said Taylor, who’s spearheading a campaign to get Telemark skiing into the next Winter Olympic Games. ”People are always amazed when they see Telemark skiing and appreciate the technical difficulty involved at a high level, although it’s not a hard sport to get into, whether you’re already a skier or complete beginner.”

Taylor also wants to encourage younger skiers to get into the sport.

Lillehammer, Norway, who represented the country for Telemark skiing at the Interski Congress, as well as being an ISIA Telemark Trainer with the DNA (Norwegian Ski Schools), thinks that equipment manufacturers and retailers are missing an opportunity. He says, ”While Telemark is a niche sport, it’s the discipline with the most equipment owned per skier. Every ski rental company has a plethora of skis and snowboards for rent, whilst Telemarkers buy. It’s one of those sports that hooks you in, you’ll go on the forums, you’ll join social media sites, and for the largest part, you will buy skis, boots, and other accessories associated with the sport.”

With the growth in North America, and the evolution of equipment, you’d think the sport would feature more prominently in the media, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. Jasmin Taylor, British women’s champion, recently placed second in a World Cup event in Hintertux, Austria, yet despite this, she gained little coverage from both mainstream and the ski press.

”There are plenty of opportunities to become successful, whether you come from Alpine skiing, cross-country, or start out with Telemark – there are many options. Come to the British Championships in Rauris, Austria, or do some French Cup races – you can train in Les Houches or Samoëns, all Telemarkers are very friendly!”

Telemark equipment has evolved during the last 15 years too, making it easier and more

I asked her why she thought this was the case.

Scott Hammond, a British national residing in

Let’s see if the International Olympic Committee thinks the same way in the future.

The Jump Takes Snow Mainstream

ISPO Numbers Hold Up

Delancy Announce Extended Support for BSS

SkiA Endorsed By The Benni Raich Race Centre

Channel 4’s The Jump has brought winter sports to a mainstream audience who might not normally view snow-sports-related content. On 28 January it was the second most tweeted TV show, with 17,027 ”tweets”, proving that the combination of celebrity and snow seems to work well. As we went to press, X Factor winner 2009 Joe McElderry had won the competition, beating his rival the investigative journalist Donal MacIntyre, whilst fellow finalists BASI President Sir Steve Redgrave, and comedian Marcus Brigstocke had had to pull out due to injuries. The eight episode show, made by Two Four Productions, also pushed the well-known faces down a ski cross course, slalom and speed skiing hill.

Numbers at the 2014 ISPO, Munich, remained consistent compared with last year, as visitors exceeded the 80,000 mark. Notable awards included an ISPO Gold Medal for British backpack company Snow Mule, an outdoor award for head wear market leader Buff and their Balaclava Cross. Ortovox won several awards including one for their new Pocket Spike Emergency Axe, which combines a snow shovel with an ice axe. Another award-winning innovation from Black Diamond is their Jetforce Avalanche Airbag pack, the first airbag pack that inflates and deflates with a battery-powered fan, instead of a gas or air canister. ispo.com

With the 2014 Winter Olympic Games now underway, British Ski & Snowboard are assured of future funding with the announcement that Delancey will continue their support up until May 2016. The deal includes sponsorship for Alpine, snowboard, freestyle and cross-country teams, helping both upcoming and established athletes to train and compete. Jamie Ritblat, Delancey’s Founder and CEO, said, “With exciting young talent to watch at the Olympics, such as Sheffield-born James Woods, snow sports have become more popular than ever before. However, if we are to inspire and create success internationally, we need to provide the financial resources to do that.“ teambss.org.uk

The Benni Raich Race Centre in Austria, founded and run by the famous ski racer, has given the British made SkiA Sweetspot Ski Trainer a glowing endorsement, using the device with their pupils on training camps.

Head Coach Alfons Schmid commented, ”The SkiA Sweetspot Trainer is a great training aid to train balance on ski boots.” SkiA Designs Founder Dr Martin Breach was delighted with their remarks, and said, ”It’s fantastic to get this independent recognition from such an influential and authoritative source in the ski industry.” The trainer has recently been featured at ISPO, Slide, and SIA in Denver. skia.com

He concludes by saying, “Telemarking is special, Telemarking is difficult, Telemarking is the original and the best!”

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Issue 05 | February 2014

Ski RESORTS Appearances Are Deceptive Rob Stewart Co-Editor I was recently lucky enough to visit the resort of St Moritz for the first time, and experience the luxury lifestyle that the town is renowned for.

Although there is certainly an abundance of jet-setting activities, restaurants, and shops to keep even the keenest oligarch amused for weeks, I couldn’t help think that the Engadine valley, which graciously cradles the town of St Moritz, has a lot more to it than you’d expect.

There’s a huge variety of sporting activities available in the valley, the skiing is good and suits all levels, and it even has a youth hostel, which could easily pass for a hotel in other destinations.

It got me thinking that our perception of resorts does not always match the reality of our experience, and wondered how difficult it is to change our perceptions of them.

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Alina Zaiceva lives in St Moritz and works as a Marketing Manager for Ski Cool, an English-speaking ski school run by BASI member and ISIA Vice President, Vitorrio Caffi.

Zaiceva says, “there’s lots of choice for accommodation in the Engadine valley, from small family-run hotels to large five star palaces. But most people don’t realise this, they think it will cost far more than other resorts in Switzerland, but it doesn’t have to.”

Changing that view is something the Engadine Tourist Office is keen to do, and introducing a CHF25 per day (around £17) ski pass, for stays of 2 nights or more, is one step towards achieving this, but until you actually experience a product it’s hard to see it in a different light.

Livigno used to be known as a family resort with tax-free status, particularly suited to intermediate skiers. But over the last few years their marketing strategy has targeted a different audience with successful results. The location means that short trips are difficult due to long transfer times, but it’s very snow-sure. It has targeted younger skiers who want great snow and good snowparks – they generally stay for longer periods too. The recently introduced Freeride Project aims to share avalanche safety information with

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skiers on a daily basis, and this reinforces the message, which helps to encourage this kind of skier or snowboarder.

Another resort that has hit the headlines this winter is Warth-Schröcken, with its new link to Lech-Zürs. I asked Angela Schwarzmann from the tourist office if she thought the image of WarthSchröcken was purely based around family holidays. “No, I don’t think so”, she said. “The area is suitable for families, but there are also lots of couples and groups of friends. There is a huge amount of freeride possibilities too, especially with the new link.”

Val d’Isère is an obvious choice for expert skiers, with its steeper slopes and extensive off-piste offerings. Therefore, marketing is geared heavily towards the lower end of the ability spectrum to counterbalance this view.

“We have developed quiet slopes at the top of the ski area which enable beginners and families to experience the panorama and to ski together on suitable slopes”, we were told by Justine Mathé, Commercial Development Manager for the tourist office. “Val d’Isère is holder of the ‘Family Plus’ label, which means that it is a kid friendly ski resort and we all know that kids mean mainly beginners.”

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February 2014 | Issue 05

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Amie Postings Looks Into Sustainable Mountain Development Courses At Perth College

MOUNTAIN STUDIES How does the course specifically relate to ski resort management?

There are three core modules on the course. We look at the broad environmental and social issues in mountain areas, in addition to looking at sustainable development, and policy analysis too. Optional modules include: bio-diversity; and economic development. Sustainable tourism and water management issues are covered, and students have the option to complete a placement module, which can, of course, be spent in a winter resort. Course assignments can be based in or on ski areas, as can the 15,000-word dissertation, required to complete the course.

There aren’t many accredited courses or formal qualifications in the winter sports industry, and with mountains covering 24% of the Earth’s land mass, there’s a lot we don’t know about our favourite playground. Professor Martin Price, Director of the Centre for Mountain Studies at Perth College University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI), and UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Mountain

Development, tells us why the winter sports industry can benefit from their online masters degree.

What are the entry requirements for the course?

An honours degree in any field of study is all you need to join the MSc Sustainable Mountain Development

course, and a strong interest in mountain areas obviously. The course is totally unique, there’s nothing else like it in Europe. We currently have 30 students studying, and while the majority are in the UK, we also have students in Bulgaria, France, Germany, Spain, and the USA. The course is delivered online, so students from anywhere in the world can join.

What kind of employment can graduates expect after the course?

Employment prospects are varied, and very much depend on the student. Nearly everyone on the course is a mature student, bringing with them a wealth of other work and life experience. Our graduates will typically find employment as consultants, teachers, and lecturers.

Two of our recent graduates have won very prestigious awards, with one becoming Alpine Student of the Year, and another winning a prize from the Royal Geographical Society for his dissertation. As the environmental impact of winter sports, and the management of mountain resorts become more prominent, there are sure to be a growing number of employment opportunities.

In the long term, do you think the course will have an impact on the European winter sports industry?

It certainly could do if more people join the course. How our mountains are managed has year-round implications: it could be that we see ideas and concepts for more sustainable methods of operation come from the studies of our students. Because of the online, flexible nature of our modules, the course can work nicely alongside a seasonal business.

Find out more at perth.uhi.ac.uk/ specialistcentres, or email Professor Price at Martin.Price.perth@uhi.ac.uk.

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Mark Livesey | Venture Ski

Managing Mountains Of Guest Information challenges and patterns as every other operator, but we’ve tried to carve ourselves a niche. Making your winter ski accommodation product different is very hard, so we’ve developed a number of USPs to help us stand out.

We’ve also concentrated our expansion activity in just one resort, expanding our portfolio one property at a time.

When we started Venture Ski in 2003, the market was no different to how we see it today. The UK has always produced keen skiers each winter. We started the company because we love the mountains, and because we wanted

to be in control of our own destiny. We now build, own, and operate nine chalets in Sainte-Foy, with 113 beds in total.

Over the last couple of tricky years we’ve experienced the same business

I personally became involved in the ChaletManager property management system back when it was just an idea.

Here at Venture Ski we needed to organise and process a lot of guest information to be able to provide our luxury ski holidays, and match our guests’ expectations. We literally had mountains of paperwork, and we used a lot of spreadsheets. It was all very labour-intensive and repetitive. Over several years ChaletManager has been tweaked, tested, and perfected. The

system has been taken to a whole new level, with lots of extra features that I never even knew I needed.

All of our team on the ground in Sainte-Foy have access through ChaletManager to the guest information they need to do their jobs, and because of the different admin levels, no one can make a mistake in the system that’s disastrous. The system itself is very straightforward to integrate into your other business systems; it’s intuitive, and minimum staff training is required to use it, making it perfect for seasonal teams.

Our guests also get to see how efficient ChaletManager is through the ”mybooking” function. We like to micromanage our guests, and when we confirm a reservation we send a welcome pack, including a

ChaletManager username and password, giving our guests full access to their booking details in advance of their stay.

We gather a lot of important and valuable guest specific information this way.

Last summer we started using the real-time availability calendar on our website, which was very easy to install, and has had a huge impact on the quality of the enquiries we receive. We now get fewer dead enquiries, where our chalets are already fully booked, which in turn gives us more time to concentrate on live enquiries that we can actually accommodate.

ChaletManager chaletmanager.com Venture Ski ventureski.co.uk