The new operator of Cairngorm, Scotland: an 'unnatural rip-off'?

A snowHead

This posting is a bit longer than a typical sH posting, because it's important to reproduce - in full - a press release which was issued three weeks ago by Natural Retreats (the new operator of Cairngorm Mountain).

There are significant questions about that press release.
There are bigger questions about the way skiing is being priced, in relation to the service provided (i.e. uplift provision), on the mountain.
[I worked one full season on Cairngorm (1974-5), as a ski instructor, and part-time the following season. It's a great mountain, loved by thousands of skiers]

Let's begin with the press release, issued in mid-December by Grifco PR, 18 Coda Centre, 189 Munster Road, London SW6 6AW. No need to read it in full if you don't want to ... skip below ...

A snowHead

It was holiday season, the snow was already marginal and bony, but the hoards descended on Aviemore/Cairngorm anyway and as usual, some of them felt aggrieved. Much of that was an inevitability, and restricting ticket sales when capacity is insufficient is a good thing. The day pass pricing argument in itself will never be winnable because even at £34.50, the counter would be that it's cheaper per metre of vertical than a snowdome, yada, yada, yada, and 'good value' compared to a day doing (insert a predictably more expensive hobby here) elsewhere in Scotland. And regarding capacity / relative pricing compared to other ski area day passes, like newly incumbent governments, Natural Retreats can just play a get out of jail free card by pointing fingers at their predecessors.

So I reckon you can just ignore the pricing argument altogether, Natural Retreats can and will do what they like. They could argue that their service is in fact under-priced compared to say New Zealand, Australia and the USA and that if the area is to get the investment it needs, it'll have to charge more in the long run. It's Natural Retreat's demonstrable short term commitment that should be held to scutiny, along with the decisions of the quango folk who awarded them their 25 year franchise.

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Well said

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I was up there yesterday with my fiancee, who is a fairly nervous beginner. We pre-booked passes and her equipment (I have my own). After arriving around 8:45am we queued for more than an hour to get her boots and skis - I suspect the system was designed to run with a lot more staff, but making folk queue to get boots to then join another queue to get skis seems counter intuitive to me. Anyone who had booked a lesson also got to skip the queue of regular johns.

The second staff member we dealt with to get skis was quite scathing about the new management and the cuts that had been made to staff levels to reduce costs.

£35 is fairly expensive for a day pass anywhere, let alone Cairngorm with three lifts running and only a few icy, windswept green pistes available. I don't grudge paying it as I am keen to see Scottish snowsports facilities flourish, but those prices will put many off - especially if (as yesterday) they update their facebook at 7am saying it's touch and go whether they will be open for snowsports, then had no official update until nearly 9am.

We ended up giving up after a couple of hours as it was icy, too windy to hear each other and generally not conducive to teaching a nervy amateur. To have around 600 people essentially running off two T bars does seems a bit exploitative to me and a lot of the inclusive atmosphere at Cairngorm in recent years seems to be lacking.

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Glenshee is £30.

So £34.50 doesn't seem at all unreasonable.

While some might consider it sensible to discount tickets based on operating lifts, given the variability Scotland's ski weather/conditions, that could lead to commercial disaster.

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Sounding like a scaled down verson of most of the Alps this Christmas week. Lots of punters, not much snow, never the best combination.

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@under a new name, I think it's more the fact that it's gone up around 15% with no obvious improvement to facilities.

After all it is free

£34.50 isn't a lot for entertainment these days. Look at what people pay to cycle on public roads in a Sportive or at concert prices.

If you turn up to ski on a crap day, well, that's your choice. It's not like information on weather and snow conditions isn't easily available.

"Captive market" is a silly argument. Nobody has to stay in Aviemore. Nobody has to go skiing.

We skied at Cairngorm a couple of times last winter and decided never to bother going again. Forecast looked good so we got up ridiculously early, drove for 2.5 hours, queued for an hour for ski hire, then finally got up the mountain and hardly anything was open so we gave up. In my opinion it is very poorly designed and they regularly struggle to cope when it's busy.

If you live locally and can afford to be spontaneous or if you don't mind an uphill hike when the lifts close prematurely, it's a great place.

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If they're charging too much the market will react accordingly, and sometimes you have to dip your toe in the water to find out what the market will stand.

Also, as someone says above, if you want them to invest in better lifts and more staff they will need to charge.

Anyone who thinks this is too much was quite at liberty to put their own money in (or to put together a business plan to borrow the cash) and take it on themselves.

Basic economics.

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Glenshee is £30 but i dont think they would charge that for only 3 lifts running. Last year i remember paying £20 for only the begginers lifts running.

Skied the lecht before christmas, and although it was thin(typical Lecht skiing), there was little to no ques and was a great day skiing.

Cairngorm is what it is and thats why some people go there, and others stay away. They get away with what they charge, and how they treat their customers. As long as its making them some money it will keep going that way. I would only go back when i see some investment into the ski area. I like to support Scottish skiing and think the best way to do this is by going to the ski resorts that show some investment back into the skiing side of it.

Glencoe have got planning approval for a new button lift, Glenshee will be replaceing the tiger with a new chair and possibly putting in planning permission in the summer for a new 4 man chair over on Meall Odar. The Lecht will open when ever they can even if the skiing is sketchy. Im happy to go spend money at these resorts as i feel its better for my money to go to those areas that seem to be run with skiers in mind.

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Ever since the funicular was built Cairngorm has tried to become a "year round tourist attraction" rather than a ski area.
HIE / Natural Retreats would ideally like to run just a funicular + expensive tourist shop...
The skiing has almost become an inconvenience Sad

Their target market is beginners who books lessons, hire kit and eat lunch in the cafe.
Advanced skiers who just buy a day pass are less profitable and of little importance to them.
This is a clear business strategy - demonstrated by the deliberate removal of 6 lifts used by more advanced skiers over the last decade.
West Wall Chair, Ciste Chair, White Lady T-Bar, Fiaciall T-Bar, Aonach Poma, Link Poma all gone (RIP).

Not surprising - from a purely business perspective ski areas (especially in Scotland) don't always make profit.
Ski areas have high overheads and seasonal demand.
..... However that doesn't mean that ski areas, such as Cairngorm, don't have much wider economic benefit to the local area or economy.
Main small alpine ski areas are heavily subsidised by the local commune for this very reason.

Of course the problem with all of this shambles is that it reflects badly on the entire Scottish ski industry.
Glencoe, Nevis, Lecht and Glenshee rarely have long queues at weekends or hordes of unhappy punters.
However for a number of reasons Cairngorm will always be Scotlands flag ship resort - due mainly to the accommodation and facilities in Aviemore plus the longer season in the Cairngorms. Aviemore is the closest we have to a proper ski town in the UK.

Cairngorms success is critical to the entire Scottish snowsports industry (usually they attract 30-40% of all skiers days in Scotland).
From 1970->90s it was arguably Scotlands best ski resort.
.... but the accountants, and local government (via HIE), have run it into the ground and deliberately reduced the importance of skiing to their core business.

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

^ Historically Fort William is an industrial town (based around the paper mill, fishing and iron smelt).
Aviemore on the other hand was built and developed around year round tourism, including skiing.

For many reasons Nevis Range only attracts about 20-30K skiers a year.
In comparison Cairngorm in a good year can attract 200K skier days.....
Though in the past (when all lifts were intact) they could attract 300-400K in the 1980s.

A snowHead

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£34.50 seems fine to me - far less than snowdomes charge. I'd expect to pay £20 for a dry slope couple of hours. Queuing seperately for boots and skis is also normal practice as far as I know, including in hire shops in the alps. I'm also very glad to see them forcing folks to double up tbh. Your instructors should have covered that in lessons as it's a necessary skill for any t-bar hill and not that hard if the liftie is exerting themselves to be helpful with the pickup. I do think an hour for equipment is not on though, should have had a few extra staff helping there - its not hard to lure teens to do it in return for free skiing in the off peak hours that day (guess how I spent my teens Wink

)

aj x

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Sounds pretty much like my experience there, although that was 18 months ago, so the previous operator. We were walking, and accessing what we assumed to be a mountainside restaurant for a quick snack and a drink before the last stretch to the summit. Seemed to be a right faff - no obvious main door, entry via a fire exit and have to sign in, then sign out to go to the summit, then sign back in again to peruse the shop and get a downlift on the funicular.
I really got the impression that it was just retail and cafe on a mountain with a lift joining the 2 parts. You're either in or out and the only way they want people going in and out is the entrance at the bottom.

I assume it's not like that in winter for skiing/boarding?

Some German tourists were more baffled than us.

Guessing that 400 quid season ticket is only lift access for skiing too, and not an annual funicular season ticket for walking in summer?

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andy, The restrictions in the summer are not caused by the operators.

After all it is free

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£35 seems fine to me..... I wouldn't bat an eyelid paying the same for a round of golf. Can't see a problem to be honest.

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£34 is fine if all uplift is running.
At the moment however they only have 2 beginner tows in the top basin - so a token discount might be appropriate ?

Though to be honest there are much bigger issues to be resolved at Cairngorm.
Such as the lack of adequate uplift in Coire Na Ciste or White Lady....
Or the long queues at weekends for tickets / food / ski hire.

You know it makes sense.

The funicular must be a huge investment and maintenance load, I guess that is why there is less investment in other lifts. Why on earth they built it instead of maintaining and modernising other lifts I don't know. Funiculars in the Alps were built 40+ years ago (waiting for a more knowledgeable SH to tell me I am wrong!) and all the new developments are high speed cableways of various sorts. Presumably because the resorts got fed up with digging the things out after and during every fall and found the cable solutions were more cost effective.

I will be skiing Glencoe, it is run for sports first and foremost. (and its a cracking ski!)

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

The funicular was a mixed blessing. It can operate in high wind speeds, unlike the chairs it replaced. Plus it attracts lots of summer custom and bus tours.
However the debt from building it crippled them from 2001 thru 2010. Which also happened to be some lean snow years.

A snowHead

A snowHead

@northernsoulboy, regarding scope for new runs: As was mentioned, here are a few lifts that have been removed, significantly reducing the skiing experience. But I doubt there are any plans to re-instate these (by any future operator). Having spoken to friends in Aviemore (some of whom were employed by the last company, so their points may be skewed) they are moaning about the total shake up in personnel and lack of experience. One of them told me that the new company had promised to open the ski road every day during the ski season, I have no idea if this is true or not, but if it is then that level of naivety is unacceptable, imho.

p.s. 'The Mountain' starts next monday on BBC Scotland. Showing behind the scenes operations of this resort. Should be good viewing.

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Funiculars recently, e.g.

Tignes 1989

Funival 1987

Frachey (Monterosa) ~2010 (?)

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Skiing and Snowboarding in UK is still very much a niche activity. Uplift and associated infrastructure is expensive to fit and maintain whether that be on natural slopes, dry slopes or domes. The majority of money to be made is from lessons, in particular teaching newbies and improvers. If the vociferous and often relatively comfortably off UK skiing fraternity spent a few more quid visiting and supporting UK facilities then the situation maybe different, but they make their choices, excuses or whatever and largely spend abroad. That's fine and that's fact. So current UK uplift prices limit regular family use and therein lies a serious problem for any leisure sector growth and profitability. So don't be too hard on the new operator, they can't be in it to make their fortune.

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After all it is free

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Despite having some good skiing Cairngorm has been lower down the list of where shall we ski in Scotland for some time for me personally. I've had to stand in long queues at Glenshee, Glencoe and Cairngorm. At Glenshee and Glencoe I always got the impression they were trying to serve you as quickly as possible and were aware of the long wait, it always feels a bit like they can't be arsed at Cairngorm although granted I haven't been there for a few years. Glenshee and Glencoe also usually reduce ticket prices when the whole mountain isn't open.

Has the adult season pass price not massively increased in price though? That sounds similar to the all area pass?

The rest of the complaints I have less sympathy with. It's pretty easy now to get an idea online of what conditions are going to be like, what runs and tows will be open and how busy the resort will be. The thing about doubling up is just ridiculous as well, it's not easier to go up alone, whether you are a skier or a boarder, it's much easier to balance on T bar with someone weighing down the other side.

Help!!

The new operator of Cairngorm, Scotland: an 'unnatural rip-off'?

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