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,...
While at Grand Ski last week, we noticed that the Folie Douce have announced plans to add a fourth venue to their expanding empire. Regular après-skiers will already know the very successful Folies Douces in Val d’Isere, Val Thorens, and, from this season, in Meribel. La Folie Douce comes to Alpe d’Huez From December 2013,...
At Skipedia, we love a spot of guerrilla marketing so this recent campaign by Intersport Ski Hire France impressed us. 2025 UPDATE – Use the Discount Code ‘SKIPODCAST’ to save an additional 6% when you book your ski hire with Intersport Ski Hire Intersport teamed up with Paris agency VivaKi to take over a Paris...
While out in Chamonix last week at the Freeride World Tour, Skipedia took the opportunity to interview Anders Ollgaard, Brand Manager Action Sports EMEA from The North Face. The company’s long term mission is “to become the global leader in snowsport apparel”. With that in mind, 98% of their winter collection has changed for 2013/14...
While in Chamonix last week attending the Freeride World Tour, Skipedia caught up with Philip Schlosser, Resort and Sports Coordinator for GoPro in Europe. Why has GoPro sponsored the Freeride World Tour? We want to be present in all our core verticals, and snowsports is our main market in Europe. The Freeride...
While at Grand Ski last week, we noticed that Tignes had recently changed their Facebook page name. The original name for the page was ‘Tignes espace killy (Official)’ – not only a mouthful, but extremely ill-suited for tagging within posts. If you wanted to link to their Facebook page, you had to accept that the...
Close observers of the industry will have noticed that the French resort of Chamonix has rebranded since last season. When we met Anne-Laure Du Chattel at Grand Ski 2012, she had just started in her role as head of marketing for the resort. Du Chattel came to snowsports from outside the industry (her previous employer...
