Two months after the Brexit vote some British tour operators are reporting that booking rates for ski holidays for next winter have recovered after the initial shock of the referendum result which led many to postpone making plans for the coming winter.
Whilst few companies are providing hard figures, those with good news to report are doing so and some are even saying business levels are above last year’s (Club Med say bookings are up 6%, Ski Independence 30% compared to this time last year).
The general feeling though is that things are ‘slow’ as skiers continue to digest what has happened and its implications.
“Although we’ve started to see an increased interest in our skiing programmes in the lead up to winter, especially our new Happy Families trips to Val Thorens and Courmayeur, it seems that Brexit is causing potential customers to take even more time to book a holiday,” said Bella Lloyd of Butler & Lloyd.
The reality is though that in the time since the vote result was announced it has become clear that negotiations over what Brexit will actually mean in practical terms for British skiers and boarders won’t actually begin until well in to the coming ski season.
Inghams Reps
Any results are therefore not expected until after the end of the next ski season and implementation of those results is probably at least two years away.
So for now we are in a kind of limbo and it is gradually beginning to revert to “Business as usual” as skiers realise not a lot is likely to change soon and that whatever happens, they still want to go skiing.
To add to this increasing feeling of security, tour operators have been looking to cushion skiers from any cost fluctuations resulting from Brexit as much as they can by absorbing any cost increase from currency fluctuations themselves. Inghams were among the companies announcing a price freeze after the Brexit vote even if the pound seriously devalued against other currencies in ski nations.
“Although Brexit has had some impact on currencies, when you allow for the fact that a percentage of the holiday cost is the flight which is in pounds, the impact on the overall cost of a holiday is relatively low. I think the bigger impact is on general consumer confidence. We have seen bookings slow a little, but we remain confident that skiers like to ski and will still book their skiing holidays,” said Richard Rice, owner of Ski Safari, who adds,
“The coming winter is looking pretty positive at the moment. We have some fantastic special offers in place as well as plenty of innovative holiday ideas which we are excited about.”
“Clearly the immediate currency depreciation will hurt hard for those operators not hedged for the 16/17 season, but demand for us remains steady albeit on thin summer trading,” said Andy Sturt, owner of VIP Ski who continued,
“No one will really know until the end of the year whether the economic uncertainty has affected demand, but it seems unlikely that operators will be able to push the additional currency costs onto customers by way of increased sales price for this season. This means that operators will survive on thin gruel and skiers will get bargain holidays. Prices will probably go up next year but the rise and fall of currency markets is a regular challenge and operators are used to dealing with this, some better than others. Some will inevitable fail.”
In the longer term the main concern is over property and employment rights once Brexit actually happens around the time of winter 2018-19 in two season’s time.
There’s a major fear that if there’s the ‘full Brexit’ that most who voted for the UK to leave the EU want, UK nationals will lose their rights to work in the EU, making it likely that the lower-end of the chalet holiday market will fail, as it becomes uneconomical to employ non-British staff.
“The bigger question and great unknown troubling most operators, Alpine property market, property developers and property lending banks in the Alps is whether Chalet Operators will be able to detach staff to Europe from 2018/19 and on what terms. Only the exact terms of Brexit will determine this but in the worst case, this could have a devastating impact on the existing catered chalet model and reshape the industry completely. Interesting times,” concludes Andy Sturt.
So to sum up:
Winter 2016-17 – we don’t know what will happen, everything is essentially as before.
Winter 2017-18 – negotiations may be complete and we will know what will happen by then, hopefully.
Winter 2018-19 – changes actually start to happen, probably.
