France Ski Holidays Top Choice For Brits

France ski holidays top choice for Brits – 1000 polled

A poll of over 1000 skiers and snowboarders by top UK specialist SNO reveals France ski holidays are chosen by two-thirds, with Austria attracting half as many package holiday bookings as the French alps.

Headlines of the poll:

• Covering 1,191 respondents, all of whom booked with the operator in the last 12 months
• The top 20 ski resorts, out of the almost 200 where SNO sells ski packages, account for 80.1% of all package bookings
• Ski holidays in France accounted for the lion’s share, at 61.5% of total bookings
• the ski domain formerly known as the Espace Killy (renamed Val d’Isere Tignes) is the most popular among British skiers, with Tignes maintaining its’ top spot at 13% of total bookings and the slightly more high-end Val d’Isere taking 11.1%
• The biggest growth in market-share went to Europe’s highest altitude resort Val Thorens, which jumped to 4th place and 6.9% this year, from 7th place 4.2% just two years ago. A growth of 64% in just two years.
• Skiers moving to VT attributed their selection to having a bigger focus on snow-surety, showing that the most high-altitude ski destinations may be net-beneficiaries of the media’s more climate-change focussed coverage of the ski holiday market.
• Formerly one of the big-hitters, after an unusually rainy winter last year, Morzine fell out of the top 20 most booked ski holiday destinations for the first time. Its’ place was taken by Avoriaz which shares the same ski area but is directly above, and almost entirely ski-in/ski-out at 800m higher.
• New entrants into the top 20 ski destinations, Levi in Finland is an example of the budget end of the package ski holiday market moving from lower latitude destinations in Andorra and Bulgaria, to value packages close to the arctic circle.

The Top 12 most booked ski resorts by British skiers over the last 12 months are:

• Tignes 13.0%
• Val d’Isere 11.1%
• Les Arcs 9.3%
• Val Thorens 6.9%
• Alpe d’Huez 6.6%
• La Plagne 5.1%
• La Rosiere 3.2%
• Meribel 2.9%
• St Anton 2.9%
• Courchevel 2.5%
• Obergurgl 2.3%
• Mayrhofen 2.0%

Richard Sinclair of SNO Ski Holidays points out that, “all of the Top 6 most booked skiing destinations are high enough that they have glacier skiing.” Skiing on a glacier area is considered by most, when booking a skiing or snowboarding vacation, to be the most snowsure of all choices. They are also all ski holidays in France. “In the wake of climate change, snow surety has become the top criteria among our clients, when choosing their ski holiday,” says Sinclair. It is important to understand that reports of warmer winters affecting ski holidays are often limited to tiny ski resorts that British skiers do not visit.