Fast Track Ski News

VAT Cut in France Will Improve Standards as Well as Cut Prices

pthorne — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:00:19 +0000

The recent dramatic cut on the VAT on the cost of buying a meal in a French restaurants and cafes will result in higher service standards as well as lower prices fort Brits in the Alps this winter according to a statement from P&V (also known as Pierre & Vacances or PV-Holidays) is the number one provider of holiday residences, villages and hotels all over France – including many in British ski tour operator programmes.

The VAT cut, which came into effect on Wednesday, July 1st, will see rates drop from 19.6 per cent to 5.5 per cent just as the pound is also regaining lost ground against the Euro.

Nicolas Rochedy who runs the Chabichou hotel and restaurant in Courchevel in France’s Three Valleys, which has been awarded two Michelin stars, told P&V:
“It is important for us to support British skiers, particularly in the current climate. From December, we will be passing on the VAT reductions to all of our customers. Although some products are exempt from the cut, such as alcohol, the majority of our most popular dishes will be reduced for the customer. Skiers will therefore notice that their lunchtime meal, bottled water and cup of coffee will be largely reduced from last year’s prices.”
“As well as being able to reduce costs for the customer, the VAT reductions will also mean better service and salary increases for staff, as well as more employment at resorts. We therefore welcome the tax cuts as a way of both improving customer service and encouraging more visitors to the Three Valleys – a view that is shared by other hotels and restaurants in the region,” he added.

Revelstoke Announces New Outdoors Centre For 09-10

pthorne — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:51:47 +0000

The new ski resort of Revelstoke in British Columbia, Canada, which has the biggest lift-served vertical in North America and is the only resort on the continent to offer heliskiing, snowcat skiing and regular lift served skiing from a single base, has announced a new one-stop shop, the Revelstoke Outdoors Centre, will open next winter to service these diverse offerings.

Located at the foot of the Revelation Gondola in the resort’s new Nelsen Lodge development, ROC will be provide mountain education, awareness and performance programs. It will also be the place where Snow School, Cat Skiing, Heli Skiing, Backcountry/Slackcountry Touring and Avalanche Awareness Courses can all be booked through the one location.

Guests will have the ability to choose from flexible programs catered to their individual interests including courses such as, ‘An Introduction to Ski Touring and Split Boarding’ or ‘Guided Day Ski Touring’ which includes a full day guided experience in the backcountry of Revelstoke. Avalanche Skills Training (AST1) will also be available along with First Tracks Cat Skiing with guests enjoying breakfast at Nelsen Lodge and then an early morning ride to the top of Revelstoke Mountain Resort where a snow cat awaits them to take them to the first run of the day.

The centre will also feature an expanded high performance rental fleet with Dynastar, Movement, Salomon and Head including backcountry equipment and split boards

Revelstoke Mountain Resort will open for its third season of operations on December 5th, 2009 and Selkirk Tangiers will begin its 33rd of heli skiing operations on December 12th.

Technology To Improve Future Safety On The Slopes

pthorne — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 06:35:03 +0000

Technology is likely to become ever more prevalent on the world’s ski slopes in coming years, with skiers probably split as to whether that’s a good or bad thing!

Recent technological advances that have brought together GPS systems, credit cards, mobile phones are wireless technology have already brought us, with varying degrees of success, hands free lift tickets we can ‘charge up’ (pay for) online or from our mobiles – avoiding the irritation of the ticket office queue and the lift turnstile.
Satellite tracking means we can trace our route and speed around the mountain and print off a souvenir map at some resorts.
Increasingly this technology will be used to send us real time information on where we are, what the snow and weather is doing, and soon, no doubt, which nearby restaurant has a lunch special that might tempt us.
New patents approved this week by Apple include a sports strip – a thin health and heart monitor strip which would wirelessly instantly notify the resort’s medical staff of a serious health issue such as a cardiac arrest.
Another is a smarter lift ticket than anything yet produced which includes GPS which allows the resort operators to keep track of skiers and boarders. The implications here include the ability of the resort to set speed limits if they need to on some or all pistes and instantly know and potentially penalise transgressors – for example by cancelling their lift ticket whilst they’re still on the mountain. The same technology could apparently note if freestylers took to the air too many times fopr safety’s sake.

More Summer Ski Areas Open With Fresh Snow

pthorne — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:29:53 +0000

Most skiers and boarders have understandably forgotten all about the ski season, but June has seen heavy snow on most of the dozen or so glacier ski areas which are still open for skiing and boarding in the Alps right now.

Two French ski resorts – Tignes and Les 2 Alpes – have reopened for summer skiing and boarding in the past few days after a foot of fresh snow landed on the glacier.
Tignes began its summer ski season with a now ‘traditional’ bikini and boxer shorts skiing competition that happily brought in journalists and resulting TV and newspaper publicity across Europe!
The most ski areas open in one country however are in Austria where four resorts are open, including the Hintertux glacier near Mayrhofen and the Kitzsteinhorn glacier above Kaprun.
In Italy there are three glacier areas to visit and Norway also has three centres – some with incredible 20 foot accumulated snow depths.
In Switzerland only Zermatt is open at present – operating Europe’s highest ski lifts to 3899, which are normally only open in the summer. The vertical drop down to the base of the glacier is larger than the vertical offered in the southern hemisphere through the UK’s summer.
Across the Atlantic Whistler has also re-opened for summer snow sports on the Blackcomb glacier after a three week closure.

A Foot of Fresh Snow In The Alps in June

pthorne — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:20:37 +0000

There has been a foot of fresh snow at high altitude in the French Alps just in time for the re-opening of three of the country’s ski areas for summer skiing after a six-week closure.

Les 2 Alpes re-opened last weekend and will be joined on Saturday (June 20) by the re-opened Tignes ski area, which used to be open 365 days a year. Its neighbour, Val d’Isere will offer summer skiing from Saturday 27th June – all three areas will remain open until late July, weather permitting.
Summer skiing – or more popularly summer boarding – usually involves an early start to hit the eternal snow slop[es of the glacier before 8am. The ski day usually ends by about noon when warming temperatures often make the snow too stodgy, then afternoon relaxation by the pool, or summer mountain sports like hiking or biking, take over.
Austria has the most ski areas currently open in Europe with the Dachstein, Tux and Kaprun glaciers all open, the latter two with terrain parks and pipes. A fourth option in the country, the Molltal glacier, is scheduled to open this Saturday.
In Italy the Presena glacier above Passo Tonale still has a few intermediate and expert graded runs open – it’s season began last autumn and is now 7 months old. Two other Italian ski centres at Val Senales and Passo Stelvio have recently joined it.
Norway has three small glacier areas open with snow depths of up to 20 metres and a few centimetres of fresh snow reported earlier this week.
In Switzerland it’s just Zermatt that’s still open, but it is now operating Europe’s highest lifts at 3,899m and a summer ski vertical of nearly 1,000 metres – bigger than the ‘winter’ vertical offered by the largest resorts in the southern hemisphere.

Operators Warn Against Leaving 2009-10 Season Bookings Too Late

pthorne — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:00:37 +0000

Leading tour operators are currently reporting below average bookings for next season, understandable given the current economic uncertainty and political turmoil.

However another result of the economic downturn will be a decrease in availability of accommodation throughout the season as operators cut back on property acquisitions made during the boom years.
The result is that although the choice of resorts will be little changed for the coming winter, the choice of property within them will be, and that means it can be risky to assume space will be available if you leave booking to later in the year, if you wish to travel in a busy period, or to particular resort, or with a larger than usual group size.
The good news is that a number of special deals have been launched for early bookings (typically those made by late July) and the pound continues to strengthen against the Euro and the Dollar bringing prices down on last winter for British buyers.
Operators have also been re-visiting destination resorts to negotiate ever better deals on lift tickets and other parts of your ski holiday.
A final bit of good news is that the French government has recently announced a drop in VAT on restaurant meals from the usual 19.6% to just 5.5% from next month onwards, meaning eating out will be much cheaper in the most popular ski destination nation for Brits next winter.

New Lifts For The Flaine Region

pthorne — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:46:23 +0000

Two new six-seater chairlift will be installed in the Grand Massif region that surrounds purpose-built Flaine in France ready for next winter.

The new lifts will make it faster and easier to visit some of the four traditional villages that share the huge ski area, one of the closest to Geneva.
Above one of these villages, Samoens, the new “Chariande Express” will cut transfer time from bottom to top of the local ski area by a third and more than double capacity on the route. The lift replaces two old chairlifts and one old ski lift.
At the same time important slope improvement work will be completed as well, to offer a great playground on this part of the ski area making it vary attractive for all Grand Massif skiers (from Flaine, Morillon, Samoens and Sixt).
The other six person detachable chairlift will be in les Carroz. The new “Les Molliets” chair will replace an old detachable quad chairlift and will increase capacity on the route by two thirds. Additional slope work will also improve access to Morillon dramatically.

More Runs and More Snow For Gastein

pthorne — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:42:21 +0000

Austria’s Gastein ski region has been investing in new ski lifts, ski runs and snowmaking ready for next winter.

Some 1.2 million Euros has been allocated to further extending the region’s snow-making facilities.
On the west side of the resort towards the Angertal Ski Centre additional snow-making facilities have been installed for the Sender and Möser runs which partially opened last year.
The new blue Möser run that was begun last year will be completed from the middle station of the Sender lift to Angertal Ski Centre on the Stubnerkogel side. This gives beginners the opportunity to ‛venture’ from the main practice area towards the mountain for the first time.
In the core skiing area Schlossalm – Angertal – Stubnerkogel there are up to 12,000 winter sports enthusiasts on peak days and Gastein is working to ensure better distribution of the stream of skiers within the Skischaukel network and improve the convergence of the skiing mountains Stubnerkogel and Schlossalm.
In addition the considerable improvement in snow-making capacity in the Stubnerkogel means that the slopes there can be used to their optimum and the stream of skiers within the Skischaukel Schlossalm – Angertal – Stubnerkogel can be spread over a larger area.
Finally, at the Angertal Ski Centre work is being carried out to finish securing the banks along the Lafenbach stream and creating a practice area for children on the Judau field with conveyor (magic carpet) lifts installed.

Discounted Lift Tickets And Guaranteed Snow For 3 Valleys Opening

pthorne — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:49:29 +0000

The French 3 Valleys ski area, the world’s largest linked ski area, has announced that it will open for the 2009-10 season on 5th December this year with discounted lift tickets.

A six day lift pass for opening week will be 151 Euros for the whole region for adults, or 124 euros for the Belleville valley – on its own larger than most other ski areas with 160km (100 miles) of piste. The prices are about a third less than the regular price which applies for the rest of winter.
The resorts of Les Menuires and St Martin de Belleville guarantee some customers (those booking at certain accommodations) that at least 80% of the terrain will be open or they have the option to cancel their holiday and get their money back. This indicates the resort’s confidence that it will have adequate snow cover in early December.
The resorts have spending on further improving their extensive snowmaking facilities, which cover 40% of the ski area, ready for next winter.
Also new for 2009-10 is a four hour lift pass for 33.5 Euros, which begins operating as soon as it isa first used on the first lift of the day, a useful option for those who don’t intend to be on the slopes from dawn until dusk.

More Snow Making And A New Lift at Zell am See

pthorne — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:38:10 +0000

From the coming winter onwards, all 77km (nearly 50 miles) of ski runs on the Schmittenhöhe ski mountain above Zell am See, will have snow making coverage, guaranteeing snow coverage all season long.

Also new for next winter is a six-seater chairlift, the Kettingham chairlift, which will serve the west side of the mountain up to the ski area summit. The state of the art lift will have heated seating and pull down weather protection hoods. The new lift replaces an 30 year old cabin lift and a drag lift.

Also new in a children’s adventure world at the valley station of the Areit I lift and the Rome Park, the area’s main fun park, will also be made still better for winter 09-10.