The 2020 International Report on Snow & Mountain Tourism Published

The 12th edition of the only fully credible report into the worldwide mountain sports business has been published.

The annual International Report on Snow & Mountain Tourism compiled for more than a decade now by industry expert Laurent Vanat, appears at a time when the global ski industry has never been so badly hit as it is by the current pandemic. However the report’s focus is on the results of winter 2018-19, which Mr Vanat says results show was,

“…the best ski season of the millennium so far!”

“It is a pleasure to see that despite adverse conditions the ski industry is facing, with climate change, increasing competition and the demographics, it still has the potential to see growth for three seasons in a row,” said Mr Vanat, adding, “In today’s depressed environment further to covid-19 abrupt closure of the 2019/20 season in most of the northern hemispheres’ ski areas, this is heralding of a better tomorrow. It demonstrates the strength of the ski industry, notwithstanding the current situation, and allows the dream to be realised that the 2020/21 season will enable a return to a high level of attendance at ski resorts all over the world.”

The report’s findings include that during winter 2018/19 the United States ski areas’  recovered from a previous poor winter with excellent snow conditions, performing well above average. The country returned to the top of the podium for the 2018/19 season in terms of visitor numbers which were the fourth best in the past 41 years and better than any other country.

“The numbers may also have been boosted by the spread of the mega-passes that the enhanced competition created by the consolidation of the industry is heavily promoting. This trend, together with dynamic pricing, has also now reached Europe,” says Mr Vanat, adding, “Both are bringing a disruption in the traditional business model of the industry, although it  is still viewed with a touch of scepticism in some places and not yet widely adopted.”

Mr Vanat notes though that discounted multi-resort seasonal passes seem to have helped for the recovery of attendance at Swiss resorts for instance. Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia are also featuring some interesting examples, which integrate interactive customer relationship management systems, he says.  

China has built a powerful ski infrastructure, even if it is not yet reached its full potential, with the development of ski training centres including ski simulators, dry slopes and a growing number of indoor ski halls. However, there remains an issue, which Mr Vanat notes has been a problem too for the more mature markets of Europe and north America for more than two decades, of converting beginner skiers in to lifetime repeat visitors. But in spite of this weakness, Chinese ski industry managed to sustain its growth and reached over the 20 million skier visits mark in 2018/19 season.

In Asia, Japan and South Korea still feature a worrying situation. When South Korea ended up showing continuously deteriorating visitation numbers, with a stabilisation in 2018/19, after six years of decline, Japan saw again lower attendance. After having stabilised over the previous two seasons at a level that was about half than 20 years ago, Japanese skier visits figures dropping again in 2018/19.

Elsewhere in the world, Iceland and Scotland also experienced very poor seasons, due to bad weather conditions and lack of snow.

From this mixed-picture, the positives, which included the growth of business in China and the US, as well as in Scandinavia and some countries in the Alps (Whilst others slowed their decline) mean2018-19 was, overall, up, for the global ski industry in terms of visitor numbers, Mr Vanat’s research found.

The 2020 International Report on Snow & Mountain Tourism covers results from 68 countries in the world which have outdoor snow ski areas, around 2,000 of which can be considered ‘resorts’.

The full 2020 report is available to download in English here.