The pound will buy you more in some of the world’s skiing nations than a year ago according to end-of-year exchange rate stats published by No1 Currency.
Since the Brexit vote sent the pound tumbling 18 months ago, 2017 has seen some stabilisation in the decline, but has also been a bit of a roller coaster year for exchange rates.
“On the face of it, it’s been a rocky year for the Pound,” said Simon Phillips, Retail Director at No1 Currency.
“Dig a little deeper and you’ll find that in three quarters of holiday hotspots, you can actually get more for your currency than you could a year ago. For those planning to get away to one of those destinations where the native currency has dropped by more than 5% against the sterling, it’ll feel like Christmas has come early.
For skiers, the Pound is doing best against the Turkish Lira, rising 17% since last Christmas, while, surprisingly perhaps, doing worst against the Polish Zloty – dropping 9%.
Turkey does have some good ski areas, including Uludag below, but it also has Foreign Office travel advisories on visiting there to ski.
In terms of major ski nations sterling is up 7% against the US Dollar from its historic lows in autumn 2016. This year every £1000 exchanged into Dollars will buy you $90 more than last year.
Apart from the Swiss Franc and the Norwegian Krone, which are up 3.96% and 4.18% respectively, Brits will see worse exchange rates in countries closer to home. As well as the Eurozone, Sweden os also more expensive this year.
“It’s an interesting pay-off. On the whole, currencies in countries closer to home will cost you more than last year, yet countries further away will give you better rates – so although flights will be more expensive, your daily spending money could well go further,” concluded Mr Phillips.
We have a more detailed feature on the current value of the pound here.
