Tag: swiss

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4th Annual World Ski Awards Winners

The 4th Annual World Ski Awards, a ski industry shindig, were held in Kitzbuhel this week. LAAX was voted the best resort in Switzerland and the best freestyle resort in the world. Some of the other headline winners included:

World’s Best Ski Resort 2016 – Val Thorens
World’s Best Freestyle Resort 2016 – LAAX
World’s Best Ski Hotel 2016 – W Verbier
World’s Best New Ski Hotel 2016 – The Westin Rusutsu Resort (Japan)
World’s Best Ski Boutique Hotel 2016 – The Vale Niseko (Japan)
World’s Best Ski Chalet 2016 – Bighorn (Canada)
World’s Best New Ski Chalet 2016 – Chalet Pont du Cam (Meribel)
World’s Best Ski Resort Company 2016 – Bergbahn AG Kitzbühel
World’s Best Indoor Ski Resort 2016 – Ski Dubai (UAE)
World’s Best Ski Tour Operator 2016 – Sunweb (UK)

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Where to ski – early season resort openings

There has been as much as two metres of snow in some parts of the Alps, although relatively few resorts are open. Upper Valais seems to have done particularly well, and Andermatt has had a good dump.

In Switzerland Corvatsch (St Moritz/Silvaplana) has a couple of lifts and one run open. In Davos there are five lifts operating and two runs open on Parsenn, with Jakobshorn due to open at the weekend. Engelberg has three runs open and five lifts. Zermatt has nine lifts operating and a handful of others set to open soon, all on the Matterhorn side of the resort. Grimentz–Zinal‘s web site seems to reckon fourteen runs are open, but the information is ambiguous – best to call the resort if you fancy checking it out.

Unfortunately the amount of piste available is clearly still quite limited as the resorts seek to build a good base ahead of the season hitting full throttle. No resorts have runs back to the resort open, so in all cases you need to take the lifts back down. Needless to say, you are generally paying a full lift price for a relatively modest amount of piste.

There hadn’t been fresh snow for a few days, but the snow looks to be coming back today to many areas over 2000m, and will continue for the next few days.

Expect a few more resorts to open this coming weekend and the first weekend in December, hopefully with plenty of fresh snow and sunny skies! Quck and dirty update of resort overview is here, with full details at resort pages at swisswintersports.co.uk.

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Snow’n’Rail Prices Published


Snow’n’Rail is the popular scheme organised every year by the Swiss Railways which provides a significant discount on the combined lift and public transport ticket prices for over 40 resorts. The booklets listing the offers are available from stations in local language versions, and the online brochure also provides details in English.

There are no new resorts for 2016/7 although les Portes du Soleil is back after a one year absence. Toggenburg, Hoch-Ybrig and Val D’Anniviers have fallen off the scheme, sadly, and a couple of minor resorts are now only listed online.

After modest increases last year, it is perhaps not surprising to see significant increases in some of the offers. Adelboden, the 4 Vallées, Saas-Fee and many Graubünden resorts have seen hikes around 10%. However Zermatt has kept prices flat, as have a number of other resorts, including Les Diablerets, Leysin, Villars, Grindelwald, Wengen, Mürren, Gstaad, Meiringen, Sörenberg, Melchsee-Frutt, Klewenalp, Airolo and Stoos – some routes from Luzern have even fallen slightly.

Tickets can still get pricey, even with the discounts, especially if you do not have a half-price rail card. Without the additional discount, a full day skiing or snowboarding in Zermatt from Basel or Zurich will set you back around 270 SFr. Conversely, with a half-price card, a day in Engelberg will give you change from a 100 Sfr note. Meiringen, Sörenberg and Klewenalp, in particular, provide very good value for the extent of piste available.

For more details of the new season prices visit the resort pages at SwissWinterSports.

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Switzerland is the cheapest place to ski!

It’s official! The Tesco Bank says Switzerland is the cheapest place to ski!

Well it’s not quite as straight-forward as that. Tesco Bank released their annual Ski Index yesterday. This usefully helps people find the best value skiing worldwide, based on kilometres of piste per pound, i.e. the approach is to divide the length of piste by the lift pass price to give a measure of value for money.

Not surprisingly, given Brexit’s impact on Sterling, the price of skiing has risen dramatically in most places. Bulgaria, despite still being relatively cheap, has increased in price by two thirds since last year. The USA and Canada have increases in prices of around a quarter. Andorra is at the lower end of the scale, with a price increase of only 11%. Argentina is actually 11% cheaper than last year, although you will have to wait a while before their next winter season.

Despite the price hikes, another study from Tesco Bank found that more than a third of people are still considering a ski holiday this year. The research found that 42% of those surveyed would choose a skiing holiday in Switzerland, a seemingly wise move as four of the top 10 best value ski resorts in the world (Champéry, Les Crosets, Champoussin and Veysonnaz) are based in Switzerland. Additionally Swiss prices have only risen by a modest 15% since last year, and many Swiss resorts are offering a range of sweeteners. For example, the top two resorts in the Index – both Swiss – have reduced their prices this year.

The list of the top ten Ski resorts with the best value skiing from The Tesco Bank Ski Index are as follows:
Tesco bank Cheapest Ski resorts

So why are Tesco interested in skiing? Search me, but they do offer a couple of nice incentives of interest to potential skiers and snowboarders. Eligible Tesco Bank Premium Credit Card customers receive family travel insurance including winter sports cover as part of the card’s benefit package. New Premium Credit Card customers will also be offered 0% interest on purchases for 6 months, which could be used to help spread the cost of a ski holiday. For more information on the Tesco Bank Ski Index, please visit www.tescobank.com/ski.

And here’s a cool video the folk from Tesco have brought us for our pleasure and anticipation of the new ski season…