The Chalet Ski Stats 2019: The latest ski industry trends
Our annual ski stats event held in collaboration with Welove2ski.com and sponsored by MPI Brokers took place in London on the 12th September 2019. An evening of drinks and canapés, it was as always an ideal opportunity for professionals within the UK ski industry to catch up before the onset of the new winter ski season. Capitalising on the large crowd of tour operators, agents, suppliers and press gathered under the same roof, guests were able to chat with many different people in the industry, including a variety of journalists.
The event marked the official release of a market trend report produced by Consensio for the ski industry. The evening proved a resounding success with our biggest yet turnout of familiar and well-known industry faces. All keen to discover what behaviour and booking patterns characterised the 2018/19 ski season, to better anticipate the season ahead.
A special mention must be given to all the generous goody bag donations from the suppliers and operators who hosted the evening. Everything from eco-friendly metal water bottles, travel cups, hip flasks, adaptors, chocolate, energy bars, mints and lip balms were donated.
SKI INDUSTRY TRENDS 2019
So what can market trends for last season forecast for Winter 2019?
Booking Numbers
Travel to the mountains
The effects of snowfall
Eco-friendly skiing
When asked ‘on a scale of 1-10, how important is the concept of an ‘eco-friendly’ holiday to your clients, our Chalet Ski Stats survey found that on average the concept of an ‘eco-friendly’ holiday scores a 4. 44% of Operators and Agents ranked it as less important than a 5, with only 26% ranking it more important than a 5 out of 10.
Brexit
Since the leave result of the EU referendum, 50% of Operators and Agents have experienced a negative impact on their business, this is an increase from last year which reported 34%. Last year 64% reported that it had had no impact, this has now decreased to 44%. 3% reported a disastrous impact for the first time.
“What effect has the Leave vote had on your business in the past 12 months?”
“If Brexit brings an end to the secondment of employees recruited in the UK, what does your company plan to do?”
When asked if Brexit would bring the end to the secondment of employees recruited in the UK, what would their company plan to do, 44% of Agents and Operators reported that this is not applicable for them as they either all work in the UK or they employ locally anyway. Of the remaining Agents and Operators, 47% are undecided on their plans, 37% intend to source staff locally, 11% seek to employ other European nationalities and 5% are looking to transfer out of the UK.
SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A huge thanks to Sean Newsom from Welove2ski for speaking at and co-hosting the Chalet Ski Stats event.A big thank you must also be extended to Alepine craft beer for providing a large supply of our favourite beer, and to Winternational, Oxygene, Silver Swan Recruitment, Chalet Shop and all our fantastic fellow operators for helping to make this event a success once again my assisting with sponsorship and donating brilliant goodies for the gift bags for our press contacts and travel agents.A special thank you must also be extended to MPI Brokers for being our lead sponsor for the event.
With all thank yous said and done, good luck for the season ahead and don’t forget to do a little snow dance as we are all hoping that plenty will fall steadily across the Alps this season too.
Free to download: ‘The Chalet Ski Stats 2019’ from Consensio