Three separate studies published last month revealed that:
- The number of children going on school ski trips continues to fall.
- Most people no longer have their first ski holiday as children, but in their 20s.
- The best age for children to start skiing is 11 (or younger).
- The number of Brits taking a ski holiday last season dropped again.
InTheSnow contacted a number of industry experts to ask what they thought about these studies, and none of them expressed surprise, nor did they feel there was any obvious way to reverse the trend. The reasons for this are partly simple, partly complex.
The number of children going on school ski trips has in fact been dropping for decades now since the high point in the 1980s and early ‘90s. It is government legislation tightening up the organisation of these trips that is largely blamed for making school trips less popular for the schools themselves to organise.
The latest legislation, which has made it illegal to take English schoolchildren on a family ski holiday outside of school holidays, has exacerbated the issue, making it more expensive for parents to introduce their children to snow sports, further cutting the numbers able to try it.
“At SNO we’re a lot busier this year with early bookings,” said Richard Sinclair of travel agency SNO.co.uk, “but very few are school trips, and our client base is growing more mature in general. My sister is a teacher and so I hear about how difficult it is now for them to take kids on a school ski trip – I worry the modern educational system doesn’t value wider life/experiential education, when it’s beyond what the government happens to be testing on. The private schools of course have not stopped taking their children away to have nourishing life experiences (we look after several), but that doesn’t help most children.”
A new survey of 14,600 respondents compiled on behalf of the Ski Club of Great Britain found that most Brits now learn to ski between 21–29 years.
But more new research published on behalf of the Chill Factore indoor snow centre in Manchester found that children aged 11 or younger were actually the best suited to learn to ski or board because their sense of adventure was at its peak, while the sense of fear we all develop will not have taken hold yet.
Winter-sports organisations and tour operators have many initiatives to fight back against any negativity. Snowsport England is encouraging more people to try snow sports locally and affordably with the second year of their highly successful GoSkiGoBoard campaign which saw more than 10,000 people take to indoor snow and dry slopes last season.
At the same time the International Ski Federation is making a global effort to “bring children to the slopes” (this isn’t just a British problem …), whilst tour operator Crystal is offering heavily discounted low-season holidays to first-timers only, and Inghams is working with the Austrian Tourist Board this season on a similar initiative but aimed at getting lapsed skiers to ski again. Inghams will also offer up to 3000 more holiday places during the peak New Year period and February half-term weeks for families, in a bid to counter the problems caused by the new government legislation on taking children out of school.
But at least one family skiing expert feels that there’s an issue with public perception too with the media focus of the past few years being on deep-powder freeriding and, more recently, the freestyle skills of our winter Olympians.
“To get people involved in snow sports it needs to be perceived as both fun and aspirational … but also reasonably accessible,” said Chris Thompson, Managing Director of tour operator Ski Famille (skifamille.co.uk) which has been encouraging families to bring their children to the slopes of France for more than 20 years.
“I think we have to accept that school trips are not going to see a dramatic upturn any time soon. The indoor slopes in the UK are a great development, as are many of the offers that resorts and operators put out. However, I think that too much emphasis is put on the skiing or boarding itself (how many articles or brochures have an airborne skier or boarder doing a move that only 2% of participants could pull off!) and not enough on the overall mountain experience and just the joy of sliding on snow whatever your skills. Let’s focus on getting families to enjoy time together doing something active in the mountains.”
