Skiing - going downhill?

Just come across some interesting statistics published by Laurent Vanet (www.vanat.ch) relating to the ski industry.

Ten years ago, Swiss ski resorts had a total of around 28 million skier days (ie the number of days tickets were bought for), last winter this figure had dropped by 20%. Fewer ticket sales means fewer francs - 10 years ago receipts totalled chf 806,000,000, last year that figure was down 12%, but in real terms that's a drop of 16% in revenue. Those declining numbers have lead to 12 resorts closing during this time.

World wide there are estimated to be 115 million skiers, and each year 80% of skier days took place in just 400 (20%) of possible resorts. So what's business like in a resorts such as here?

This years' annual report by the Grimentz-Zinal lift company (www.rma.ch) showed the following. In total the lift company took over chf 15,000,000 from the sale of lift tickets, food & drink in the restaurants it runs, and ski locker rental. It also sold 2% more lift tickets than the previous year. Great news, and we hope it's not just down to the novelty of the new lift, and the fact that Zinal-Grimentz was one of the few places last Christmas to have good snow - only time will tell.

Over chf 15, 000, 000 in revenue 

So over chf 15 million, doesn't sound too bad - but then there are costs, which ate up most of the money (especially with a big investment to service, and to which most of the profit could be written off to). They broke down as follows, with the largest slice going to wages.

and what most of it got spent on

However, one mustn't forget the core ingredient to running a ski business - the weather - and that you can't control. You need bad weather to bring snow, but at the weekend you need blue sky and sunshine to draw the locals who boost ticket sales! What a business...