A “very good record” for ski resorts

Seasonal workers are smiling again. Ski resorts returned during these winter holidays with a “very good” level of attendance and higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the National Observatory of Mountain Stations.

A positive balance sheet at closing

“After a season heavily [affectée] by the closure of ski areas in French resorts, the winter holidays in February 2022 ended on a very good note, with an occupancy rate for all accommodation of 87%, i.e. an increase of 6% compared to compared to winter 2019-2020 (82%)”, welcome the mountain professionals in a press release.

Well-occupied accommodation

All the massifs took advantage of these four weeks of school holidays to “refuel” and this “despite a heterogeneous level of snow cover”, they add. Thus, the Northern Alps have an accommodation occupancy rate of 87%, the Southern Alps 84% ​​and the Pyrenees 83%.

A sharp drop in 2021

The resorts had experienced a sharp drop in attendance during the February 2021 holidays, marked by the closure of the ski lifts due to Covid-19. For the Christmas holidays, the resorts, although showing a “satisfactory” occupancy rate, had then suffered from the absence of British customers due to the epidemic outbreak. The British “regain, at the end of the February holidays, the first place in terms of international attendance, with more than a quarter of overnight stays (26.4%)”, underlines the observatory, which however notes a decline of 5% of overnight stays for this clientele compared to the 2019-2020 season.