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...
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’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 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...
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...
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,...
Automation saves time, but can lose fans I posted last week showing how automating your Facebook updates may not be the best idea. Scrolling through the pages that Skipedia follows on Facebook this morning, I couldn’t help notice some ugly automation. Lots of exciting new updates from Courmayeur? Courmayeur, I name you… I could only...
If only Facebook didn’t take up so much time… Phew. All this status updating and relationship building on Facebook takes time, doesn’t it? If only there was some quick way of automatically exporting my updates from other networks. Oh, there is you say? Great! Social Media Marketing is not free… Wrong! Facebook is ‘free’, but...
In 1990, an argument between Val d’Isere and Chamonix over who had the best skiers resulted in the first ever ‘Boss des Bosses‘. This bumps competition expanded to include, in differerent years, Verbier, Zermatt, Meribel, Courchevel and Val Thorens and became one of the highlights of every season worker’s season. Boss des Bosses >>> The...
An Epic Social Media Fail This story hit the news earlier this year, and is worth revisiting as it is an example of an epic social media fail within snowsports. The Story In December 2010, four senior staff at Sunshine Village were dismissed after an incident, allegedly involving the owner’s son, who was found skiing...
Following on from our look at the top resorts on Facebook in Austria and France, it’s now Scotland’s turn. With only five resorts, this didn’t take so long to research as the others, but please do let us know if we’ve any omissions or errors. In the meantime, here’s the Facebook chart for Scotland: The...
If you read our recent post about the Top 10 Austrian ski resorts on Facebook, you will have seen that Saalbach Hinterglemm tops that list with over 22,000 fans. We asked Saalbach resident, Rachel Dunscombe, owner of Alpine consultancy Off to the Mountains, to find out more. She recently spoke to Paul Kubalek who heads...
