Skipedia

The sad demise of the catered chalet ski holiday

by iain on Sep 25, 2023 • 8 Comments

Looking through a recent survey from Le Ski, I was struck by one stat in particular. While it was encouraging to read that the number of UK skiers and snowboarders is predicted to grow by 14% in winter 2023/24, the fact that only 13% stay in catered chalets highlighted how...

Ideas

Will ChatGPT make ‘ski experts’ redundant?

by iain on May 11, 2023 • No Comments

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is changing fast. A few years ago, it was just the name of one of Steven Spielberg’s less good movies, but in 2023 AI has moved from the world of ‘futurologists’ into the mainstream. The chances are that even if you haven’t tried ChatGPT (or Google’s ‘Bard’),...

Iain / Ideas / Tour Operators

‘Parrots in the Snow: the rise and fall of Bladon Lines’ – article in ‘Ski+Board’ magazine

by iain on Mar 8, 2023 • 3 Comments

Iain’s article ‘Parrots in the Snow: the rise and fall of Bladon Lines‘ has now been published in ‘Ski+Board’ magazine. It’s also now available as a special episode of The Ski Podcast My first experience of working in the ski industry came 35 years ago when I went to Chatel...

Iain / Resorts

Ski Touring in Morocco: A Photo Essay

by iain on Feb 8, 2019 • No Comments

Iain from Skipedia recently went ski touring in Morocco. Flying into Marrakech, and then travelling to Imlil (1740m), Iain then spent three nights at the Refuge des Mouflons (3207m), ski touring to different 4000m peaks. Ski hire was from Braemar Mountain Sports, guiding and logistics were organised by Toubkal Guide. You...

Resorts / Tour Operators

‘I’m a modern-day Batman’ says anti-ESF campaigner

by iain on Nov 2, 2014 • No Comments

These are difficult days for the ESF in the UK. The current legal cases against Simon Butler and Le Ski have stirred up plenty of negative sentiment within the British market against the ESF. Both cases – which deal with different aspects of the law – are currently at different...

Tour Operators

Why do chalet girls bake a cake every day?

by iain on Aug 13, 2011 • 2 Comments

Okay, not strictly anything to do with marketing, but just for fun… So why do chalet girls bake a cake every day? As far as I know chalets have always left out a cake for their guests to tuck into for ‘afternoon tea’. After a long day on the slopes,...

Latest entries

Advertising / Events / Social Media

Using Twitter hashtags in advertising…

by iain on Oct 17, 2011 • No Comments

‘Your season starts here’ With just two days to the Metrosnow.co.uk London Ski and Snowboard Show, I found myself admiring this ad over the weekend. That strapline ‘Your season starts here’ gets it in one. The season really does start with the London Show. But what about Twitter? I would have liked the poster even more if...

Resorts

‘War and Piste’ – the best ski season book so far?

by iain on Oct 17, 2011 • No Comments

Could it really be ‘Wickedly funny’? A couple of weeks ago, I read a new book called ‘War and Piste’. I’ll be honest with you, I was expecting the worst from this ‘wickedly funny diary of a ski season’. When I ran Natives, I used to receive regular emails from season workers who had written...

Social Media

5 Simple Tips To Improve Your Facebook Fan Page

by iain on Oct 11, 2011 • No Comments

Hopefully you already have a fan page on Facebook for your business. Ideally you have links to it from your website, your email signature and have the address printed on your business card. So if you’re making all that effort to direct people there, you’d better make sure it looks good, right? After all, you...

Resorts / Social Media

The Top Scottish Ski Resorts on Facebook

by iain on Oct 10, 2011 • No Comments

Back in the summer, we looked at how Scotland’s ski resorts were working with Facebook. With the first snow on the floor in Scotland, and the Scottish Ski and Snowboard Show coming up this weekend, we thought it was time to follow up and see how the situation had changed. The Top 5 Scottish Ski...

Social Media

5 Simple Tips For Using Twitter Effectively

by iain on Oct 9, 2011 • No Comments

At first glance, Twitter seems much more complicated to use than Facebook. After all, your nephew and your mum are probably both on Facebook, but it’s unlikely they Tweet. But while there are many more users of Facebook, there are still over 200 million active users on Twitter. So if you’re not already using Twitter...

Events / Skipedia

Le Derby du Roc Merlet – going downhill fast

by iain on Oct 7, 2011 • 6 Comments

The Roc Merlet Derby in Courchevel 1650 has been one of the classic season worker events since…well, no one seems to be exactly sure when it started. But it was definitely going on in 1995, as shown in this poster. This end of season event sees competitors take a rare chance to hoon from the...

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