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,...
Tour operators, destinations, properties and members of the media gathered in London last week for ‘LISTEX Luxury’ – a focus on the top end of the market. After networking sessions in the morning, James Gambrill from the Ski Club of Great Britain opened the afternoon forum session with a look at the data behind the...
We’d already heard of the Taninges bubble graveyard, near Morzine in France, but never managed to visit. Now we don’t need to, as Alex Irwin from the YouTube channel ‘150 Days of Winter‘ has done it for us. Alex spent several hours exploring the many fascinating chairlifts, gondolas and cable cars spread across the site....
Earlier this month, we attended LISTEX online, organised by the Mountain Trade Network. During the event, The Ski Club of Great Britain presented their latest consumer research. Here are seven quick takeaways from that report… Book early Almost 1/4 of people have already booked their ski trip for next winter. Most of these will be...
Following up on our recent blog post ‘Will ChatGPT make ski experts redundant?‘, we thought we’d extend the theme by asking a friendly AI to create some images for us. There were some worryingly scary results… The terrifying pain of snow… A smiling 6 year-old boy throwing snow into the air with joy, dressed in...
Now in its eighth year, Booking.com’s 2023 annual Sustainable Travel Report, gathered insights from over 33,000 travellers from 35 countries. The latest survey shows that there is a huge appetite for sustainable travel solutions – but it helps if those options are not more expensive. Booking.com has committed to reach net-zero by 2040, by achieving...
The latest International Report on Snow & Mountain Tourism by Swiss expert Laurent Vanat was released yesterday, looking at data from the 2021/22 winter season. The report shows that after two difficult years due to the pandemic, the ski world has recovered well. Vanat’s media presentation yesterday was packed full of insights. These are some...
