A company called HomeToGo which aggregates prices from over 250 holiday rental websites has researched the cost of a 330ml glass of a well-known brand of cola in ski resorts across Europe.
Contacting restaurants direct and checking prices on restaurant websites they found a big difference in the cost of a cola, the cheapest working out at 80p, the most expensive £6.50 – more than eight times more. The average price came in at £3.12.
Unsurprisingly Eastern European resorts had the lowest prices with restaurants in Bansko, Bulgaria the cheapest at 80p. Ski areas in Poland were found the charging 99p to £1.25 and at 2014 Olympic destination Sochi £1.42
Winterberg in Germany was the cheapest in Western Europe at £2.42 and Saalbach in Austria the cheapest of the big resorts in the Alps at 3p more – £2.45.
Livigno in Italy, known for its cheap duty-free alcohol prices was below the European average at £2.50 but Grandvaira in Andorra which has a similar reputation was slightly above the average price when it came to cola at £3.50, the same as ‘upmarket’ Austrian destination Lech-Zurs.
French resorts were found to b the most expensive when it comes to buying a cola by some distance according to the HomeToGo survey. Courchevel, also home to the most five star hotels and the most luxury ski chalets of any resort in the world had the £6.50 cola. Val d’Isere was second most expensive a £5.20 and Tignes third at 10p less – £5.10
Perhaps most interesting was that despite their reputation for high prices, in part due to the strong Swiss Franc compared to other currencies, Swiss resorts did not top the list. Verbier was sixth most expensive at £4.28, St Moritz ninth most at £3.70 and Zermatt, which has Europe’s most expensive lift pass, outside the top 10 and only just above the European average at £3.35 for a cola.