British ski holiday sales seem to be on something of a rollercoaster at present with some companies reporting record sales, others saying they’re suffering from a lack of stock to sell.
It’s a complicated picture with now several years of pandemic and the impact of Brexit both big factors.
Firstly there are a lot of ‘rolled over’ holiday bookings meaning most ski holiday companies have more bookings and fewer holidays left to sell for next winter than usual.
But then the impact of the virus has led many tour operators to cut back their operations so there are fewer holidays to sell anyway.
Brexit means that its very difficult for holiday companies to find staff for chalets (in most cases they need to hold an EU passport) and so the number of chalet holidays available has also dropped dramatically for the coming winter.
But there’s also lots of pent-up demand for fresh bookings from skiers who have missed one or two holidays who are looking for those elusive holidays, some of them wanting two or three weeks to make up for missed weeks in previous seasons.
Until now it has been difficult to ascertain how much of those great booking numbers were the rolled-over bookings and how much new sales in summer 2021, but at least one company is reporting it’s got booming sales right now.
“We have seen some of our busiest weeks in our 20 years in business in just the past month or so – showing that skiers are exploring options beyond tour operators (where we have heard options are increasingly limited) and are pro-actively looking for wider market expertise and support from bespoke agents,” said Rupert Longsdon, CEO of The Oxford Ski Company.
Mr Longsdon’s statement is echoed by several tour operators who didn’t want their names or sales numbers published for fear of sparking a price war but claimed business was dramatically up.
