A new survey carried out on behalf of chalet specialist Le Ski predicts that the UK snowsports market will grow by a whopping 14% this coming winter 2023/24.
The results of the survey of 1000 people carried out by YouGov last month led to a calculation that an additional 160,000 holidaymakers will join the 1.12 million British skiers and snowboarders last winter, bringing the total up to 1.28 million – an increase of 14%.
Surveys of the number of British skiers and snowboarders have varied over the years with lows of half a million and highs of six million being published at various times, often depending on the survey and what’s considered a skier or snowboarder (skiing this year, skied in the last five years, ever skied once?).
The UK’s largest tour operator Crystal made detailed industry studies in the 1990s and first decade of the 2000s which saw numbers grow from approximately 750,000 to 1.4 million each year before dropping dramatically after the 2008 worldwide financial crash. They then gradually recovered up to the pandemic, and now appear to be getting back up to where they were 15 years ago.
The YouGov survey also revealed that 81% of British skiers travel just once each winter, with 19% taking multiple ski trips, including a small group (5%) of ‘super skiers’ who take three trips or more.
The survey also showed that while hotels (50%) and self-catering (29%) are more common, 13% of British skiers prefer to book a catered chalet.
Le Ski Founder and MD Nick Morgan, who has run the company for more than 40 years, believes that a hard-core of British skiers will always choose to book chalets:
“Although the number of chalets available to the UK market has fallen considerably post Brexit and Covid, we have increased our range in Courchevel, Val d’Isère and La Tania. We already have 60% of our programme sold for this winter. This is great indicator of a post-Covid recovery that is seeing more and more skiers coming back to the mountains.”
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