Europe’s Largest Ski Operator Seeks To Encourage More Rail Routes To Resorts
The French Compagnie des Alpes Group has announced that it wants rail companies from across Europe to big to supply international rail services to their resorts over the next three years.
Compagnies des Alpes operates a holiday company subsidiary, Travelski, which has offered rail holidays from London St Pancras to 10 of its resorts for the past few winters, for 23-24 using the newly relaunched Eurostar Snow Train service.
The company’s resorts include many of France, Europe and the world’s biggest, La Plagne, Les Arcs, Peisey-Vallandry, Tignes, Val d’Isère, Les Menuires, Méribel, Serre Chevalier, Flaine and Samoëns – Morillon – Sixt-Fer-à-Cheval.
Compagnies des Alpes say they are seeking bids from rail companies in France, the UK, the Netherlands and Belgium (from Paris, London, Amsterdam and Brussels) to the French Alps over the three-year period 2024 – 2027 and that other routes from Spain are also envisaged. Their aim, they say, is to offer their customers a recurring low-carbon transport service by train to their resorts.
“The invitation to tender is open to all European rail operators able to provide trains, complete or otherwise, to carry passengers to Alpine resorts on one or two rotations per week between mid-December and mid-April. Compagnie des Alpes will guarantee the operator a committed volume over the long term. The request for bids is open to several types of rail transport (high-speed, intercity, night trains), depending on availability and proposals from operators,” a Compagnies des Alpes spokesperson said.
In addition, the spokesperson said, partnership discussions are underway with other tourism operators in the French Alps (beyond the areas in which CDA operates) wishing to develop low-carbon mobility offers. Compagnie des Alpes is open to aggregating volumes from other tour operators and/or accommodation providers, where appropriate, in order to deliver volumes and related guarantees, he said.
The project aims to bring these new offers to market as early as the 2024-25 winter season, if the proposed solutions are swift and operationally realistic.
“With this new step, Compagnie des Alpes is determined to take a pro-active position, both in its actions and in its search for new, concrete solutions to help decarbonize the transport options of holidaymakers in the mountains, and to contribute to changing their habits by enabling tens of thousands of customers to travel to the resorts by train every winter,” the spokesperson added.
On average, 80% of greenhouse gas emissions come from transporting skiers between their homes and ski resorts.
As the pollution ratio between train and airplane or car is 1 to 90 and 1 to 20 respectively, the impact of travel by train has a drastic impact on the carbon footprint of a week’s skiing.
