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ESF take UK tour ops to court over alleged illegal ski guiding

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Lizzard, So this is just 'the Old Enmity' They'll never forgive Waterloo Twisted Evil
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Waterloo, pah! Give us Calais back!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Lizzard wrote:
Quote:

BTW, what do the Swedes, Dutch, Danes etc do?

Lots of ski hosting. Skikot, Ski Friends, Nortlander etc all regularly out with groups here.


Thanks, I was just wondering if hosting was purely British thing.
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N American ski hosting is a brilliant model - real locals with great experience, genuine feeling of being part of their little world for a bit and great PR for the resort for almost nil cost (barring insurance indemnity & a jacket for the hosts). Probably wouldn't work in Europe due to the TO volumes of punters and the nature/size of resorts making it more like a sheep herding exercise. Would be nice to see a lift company put a stake in the ground with a little service of their own however - opportunity to establish themselves as the "friendly resort".
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fatbob, we almost have something like that here (Megeve, Combloux, La Giettaz, Praz sur Arly)... though, crucially, they don't lead skiing groups on the pistes. They are uniformed locals - described as "bénévoles"... "volunteers" - who organise social events and are available at the lift stations and big piste maps in order to give advice and certainly they will ski up to people who look like they need a bit of help for whatever reason.

Quote:
Leur rôle ? Tout au long de la saison, ils sont là pour renseigner les vacanciers sur la station, le domaine skiable les portes du Mont-Blanc, les animations et on peut les rencontrer au pied des pistes ou directement sur le domaine skiable. Avec leur bonne humeur, ils participent aussi à l'organisation des différents animations en installant le matériel et en secondant l'animatrice Justine, et particulièrement au pot d'accueil qui a lieu tous les dimanche soirs. Un grand merci pour leur disponibilité et leur sourire.


(sorry for the French, again...)
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fatbob wrote:
Would be nice to see a lift company put a stake in the ground with a little service of their own however - opportunity to establish themselves as the "friendly resort".


Ha Ha! Swearing not allowed!!!
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miranda, gosh, haven't noticed them before. I'll keep an eye out for them in March (not that I need their services after 20 years!).
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
laundryman, they wear blue ski pants and black lift company jackets over on the main Megeve side https://www.facebook.com/ambassadeurs.megeve

Our little corner has five of them, who wear bright lime green ski pants and black lift company jackets.

With 20 years of experience, I will be asking you for some local advice in March!
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Actually, there's some info on that page that gives some insights into what a French company thinks a "host" should do...

https://www.facebook.com/ambassadeurs.megeve/info

It's in French of course but some vague snippets - over and beyond the orientation advice they give to holidaymakers - include: written and oral test to ensure they have a perfect knowledge of the ski area and the local history/culture/social calendar,ability to speak a foreign language, and enjoy being of service....

they should know everything there is to know about restaurants, ski buses, activities and events and so on but they are not allowed to recommend one establishment over another (so no kickbacks), must be contactable at any point of the day via their mobile to pass on news of the conditions, weather, technical problems...

but they are an ambassadeur - they are not there to act as a pisteur, liftie or an instructor and should not even ski with their own friends and family whilst in uniform (shouldn't smoke in public in their uniform either... hmm...), and if they see an accident they should contact the pisteurs and wait with the injured person and give assistance to the pisteur etc. etc. They can help organise lift queues so they run smoothly, but they do not have priority in a lift queue.

In return they get a lift pass and a uniform that they have to return at the end of the season, and they get the 'menu du jour' for lunch in restaurants in their sector, paid for by the lift company.
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miranda, maybe I'll volunteer in a few years!
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Sounds a good step - CMB seem to have something similar but in practice little more than a human signpost/clutter at the top of a lift. Trick in N America if you see a host on foot approaching you which the urge to inform you about something is to pretend you've got earphones in, unless they're giving out packs of tissues,choccy chaud etc.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Deer Valley has the system off to a tee.
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Just back from a week's skiing with Mark Warner and the ski hosts seemed resigned to the fact that they'll be sent home in February once the legal proceedings are concluded (the assumption is that the case will go against tour operator run ski hosting).

In the meantime, MW have told them to wear their own gear, rather than Mark Warner branded jackets, and to 'avoid' the ESF (not sure quite how one 'avoids' the ESF in a French Resort!?) - so as not cause too many waves.

Have to say, not being a user of the ski hosting, I'm agnostic about the whole thing - but based on it's popularity on MW holidays, I can see quite a few complaints if the service is pulled.

{edited for spelling/grammar}
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
abj, surely the ski hosts do more than just host though? Many (certainly with other TOs) are airport reps, resort reps and bar staff.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Quote:

surely the ski hosts do more than just host


Apart from doing the transfers on Sundays, apparently not. Based on what the two hosts I was talking were saying, they'll be put on a plane home if the hosting is stopped.
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I wonder how whatever turns out to be the end result will affect the Esprit situation. Not specifically their ski guiding/hosting or whatever it is called, but their snow rangers.

For those who have not used Esprit lessons for children pretty much every group goes out with a snow ranger from Esprit to help the instructor. Now in Courchevel (not able to comment on the other French resorts) they use ESF so am wondering if this will have an impact on that relationship.
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I was away two weeks ago in Les Menuires with Ski Olympic and they'd not hosted the day before we arrived (12th) because of the arrest in Courchevel the day before, but the week we were their they hosted. A friend has just got back from Motterat last week with SkiWorld and they were not hosting because of the same incident.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
stevew, "arrest in Courchevel" not seen that one?
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I skied 3 times in a week with the Crystal Host in Champoluc, Italy 2 weeks ago, Their program they call "Social Skiing" he made it quite clear that his job was basically a human piste map, nothing more. No teaching, in fact he advised one guest to take a lesson, which he arranged for them with the local Italian Ski School, business for them that they otherwise wouldn't have got.

He also actively encouraged people within the group to take the lead, he just suggested where we might like to ski, pointed us in the right direction and met us at the bottom.

Italian Ski School seemed perfectly happy with what he was doing, after all it brought them business.

He also arranged for a local Mountain Guide to visit us in our hotel to see if anyone wanted off-piste trips.

Great service and non of it to the detriment of the locals. Very Happy
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ansta1 wrote:
rob@rar, you are probably correct and what will happen is that TO will start putting group skiing sheets up where guests sign up to meet up and ski together, there may even be some of the off duty staff interested in this i would suspect and clearly there is a chance that they may also know the mountain enough to offer some suggestions.........


or to put in another way.


A laywer goes to visit a client in london, leaves is expensive umbrella in the taxi. When he is back in the office he submits his expenses claim which covers taxi fare, train ticket, parking, lunch and the lost umbrella. A couple of days later he get the expenses form returned which says, all paid except umbrella as this is not covered under expenses policy.

Said lawyer submits next months expenses, usual stuff, taxis, trains, lunches etc with a hand written note on the bottom..
"try and find the bloody umbrella now then"


Arrrrr thank you..........


i refer our learned colleagues to an earlier post on this....
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Spyderman, That's about 95% of the ski hosts job, the other 5% been a point of chalet entertainment and to do the transfer rep work.

abj, As I stated my thoughts are hosting came about to give the transfer reps something to do in the week. With out the hosting I can see TO's removing them and those with multiple chalets use a chalet host to do the transfer or the resort manager?
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abj wrote:
Quote:

surely the ski hosts do more than just host


Apart from doing the transfers on Sundays, apparently not. Based on what the two hosts I was talking were saying, they'll be put on a plane home if the hosting is stopped.


It depends on the company. For the likes of Mark Warner and (I think) Ski Olympic, they use dedicated ski hosts. So hosting forms the very bulk of what they do, and they're available to ski with for anything up to 5 or 6 days of the week.

The larger TOs use reps to do hosting. For instance, when I repped for Crystal in Les Arcs we had 11 reps in resort and offered hosting on 3 days of the week, with 4 staff per day. So each rep would typically only host for one day of the week. Some TOs (Directski) don't even have their reps do any hosting at all.

The specialist companies such as MW will suffer from this much more than the big TOs. With Crystal they often had over 600 customers per week in Les Arcs, and not once in the whole season did we exceed the maximum of 48 skiers for hosting (12 per rep). So it was probably around a 5% takeup or less (some days we didn't make double figures). MW seems much higher than that, and a large part of why people book with them.
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After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
Quote:

use a chalet host to do the transfer

And who, meanwhile, do you imagine is cleaning your chalet? Laughing
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Hells Bells wrote:
abj, surely the ski hosts do more than just host though?


Skiworld reps used to guide( ski host) but have many many other duties as well. SW reps in France are now banned from skiing with guests completely. Disciplinary action threatened if anyone does. Shame.

Last week I was guided off piste by a Skiworld posse on their day off, and as I wasn't a SW guest all was fine. Bunch of happy, crazy hooligans they were too. Laughing Laughing Laughing
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Lizzard wrote:
Quote:

use a chalet host to do the transfer

And who, meanwhile, do you imagine is cleaning your chalet? Laughing


The magic word there was multiple, I've seen it where a host has gone that the other hosts split the cleaning of that chalet.
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sequoiaboard, my chalet holiday experiences were with Skiworld and Crystal, so that is why I thought they all have other duties.
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Hells Bells wrote:
sequoiaboard, my chalet holiday experiences were with Skiworld and Crystal, so that is why I thought they all have other duties.


Quite right, they do have many other duties.bar crawl being one of them Laughing
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So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
sequoiaboard, and making Chilli vodka for the staff night off.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
According to the MW resort/hotel manager 50% of adult guests use their ski hosting service ... so I can see this being an issue for Mark Warner.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Masque wrote:
stevew, "arrest in Courchevel" not seen that one?


This is what we were told. It was the talk of the staff when we arrived. I'm sure I saw it earlier in the thread as well.
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Hells Bells wrote:
sequoiaboard, and making Chilli vodka for the staff night off.


Yep...and have you tried the one where they dissolve a few packets of Fisherman's Friends in a bottle? Savage Shocked
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sequoiaboard, Shocked FF Vodka . . . that'll warm cockles and clear sinuses. Twisted Evil
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
From a business point of view, provided ALL UK companies stop hosting, then great, payroll saving, margin up Very Happy
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Boredsurfing wrote:
From a business point of view, provided ALL UK companies stop hosting, then great, payroll saving, margin up Very Happy


Obviously it will make our TO trips considerably cheaper..................................................
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Quote:

Masque wrote:
stevew, "arrest in Courchevel" not seen that one?


Yup, there was some talk of this from the MW resort manager - from memory it was a couple of Crystal reps.
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abj, I know two (Crystal) were stopped and questioned and details taken but no arrests.
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abj wrote:
According to the MW resort/hotel manager 50% of adult guests use their ski hosting service ... so I can see this being an issue for Mark Warner.


Not if it affects everybody in the same way. Have to say that the French aren't daft and would have been aware of the 'Social Skiing' stuff and unmarked jackets as anyone else. It was a bit like waving a red flag to a bull and putting the 'social ski socialisers' in the firing line.

The TOs probably stopped doing it out of concern for their staff.
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After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
These events will affect some more than others. I can’t see this affecting Crystal too much but as others have said, some guests book with a specific TO because of the quality/ frequency of this service.

What is the SCGB position in all this? It is some years since I was a member but we have in the past chosen a resort because of the leader service.

It may also make life a bit more difficult for the regular skier. On my last chalet holiday, we all agreed that we would have a bit of a ski together. All individuals and couples and no one really in charge, but someone has to have the map and make the suggestions as to where we would go – otherwise we would have wasted time faffing about at the top of every lift.
If this happens again will we be pulled over by the gendarmeries and asked to explain ourselves!!!
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feshiebridge,

Quote:

What is the SCGB position in all this?


From the SCGB AGM minutes 22nd November 2012

Quote:
Recently the French authorities supported by the ESF challenged a UK tour operator regarding on
and off piste guiding.
We have sought advice from French lawyers. The advice was unambiguous.
The law states that without the appropriate qualifications individuals, for remuneration, are not
permitted to guide or instruct. As our leaders are volunteers we were advised that this member
benefit fell outside of the particular law that has been cited. Thus it is the Club’s intention to carry
on leading but we would watch events.
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SCGB reps are supported by the resort so presumably the resorts approve of what they do.


Last edited by Ski the Net with snowHeads on Wed 30-01-13 17:31; edited 1 time in total
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