Last-minute ski reservations up after good snowfall in French Alps
‘We have rarely seen so many bookings for New Year's Eve’, says tourism analysis agency
Ski resorts in both the Alps and Pyrenees are reportedly enjoying excellent conditions, with ample snow and fine weather (pictured: Val Thorens)
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Last-minute bookings for the ski stations have boomed after good snowfall in the Alps, says a French tourism monitoring agency, following reservations for New Year’s Eve and the February holidays.
The lack of early snowfall had left analysts pessimistic about the winter ski season, with several resorts delaying their opening dates.
Fortunately, a series of snowstorms addressed this bringing intense snowfall in a short period of time.
The latest - Storm Enol - saw an average of one metre of snowfall for both the Pyrenees and the Alps on December 21.
Since then ski resorts in both have reportedly enjoyed excellent conditions, with ample snow and fine weather.
“Three weeks ago, Christmas was more than 10 points behind last year in terms of bookings”, says Denis Maurer, Chairman of tourism analysis company G2A Consulting, “Today [Wednesday, December 25], the gap is only 3.8 points in terms of the number of bookings, so there has been a big catch-up.”
The spike in reservations means that 5% of all bookings in Savoie and Haute-Savoie for the first week of the Christmas holidays were made in the last few days.
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Bookings for early in the new year are also positive.
“We are up more than 10% on 2023 numbers which was itself a very good year”, says Mr Maurer.
In addition to Christmas and New Year, the first week of February is also seeing a sharp rise.
“The first week of February, which is the week before the February holidays, is seeing the strongest upturn, along with Christmas week,” says Mr Maurer.
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“The trend of French families with children booking their holidays earlier in January is continuing.”
“The first week of February will end up being just as good in terms of the number of people in our resorts as that of the first week of the holidays”.
