Mountain owners / resort management

A snowHead

Does anyone ever look at who owns resorts, how they vary (or not), and then do you choose a resort partly by the owners?

I'm thinking of tales I heard in Canada and I think the US (Colorado), about resorts being "taken over" by X company, so they'd stopped doing this and started doing that. Or maybe it's just a business-oriented transatlantic thing?

This may be a bizarre symptom of me eager to go back to Lake Louise and worrying it won't be as good as I remember (I complained about the food last time, no pasta anywhere on the mountain, just burgers; and this time I didn't find discounted group lessons for 3+ days)... but I have a feeling it's backed by some logic.

Anyone?

A snowHead

I think its very different in North America - where one company basically owns the whole ski hill, so runs the catering, ski schools, hire, lifts, ski-patrol and so on. In Europe you have the lift companies, but seperate companies owning accomodation, resturants usually privately run (some by the lift companies) and several competing ski schools and equipment shops.

It does seem to be something that the Americans get more worked up about. Can't say I've ever thought about it. We're off back to Banff/Lake Louise and I don't suppose the resort owners have any control over the snow fall or the mountain terrain and so on!!

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Alpine resorts are not "owned" by one company as such, though there are examples of a new owner of a lift company having plans for extending the area which may or may not go down with the locals-I think there is some controversy in Saas Fee recently for example.
There are often a number of families in the older resorts who have a hold on the hotels and businesses..so in Zermatt there are the Perrens, Julens and Zurbriggens and probably a couple of other now hugely extended families who used to farm a few cows, then great granddad built a hotel back at the end of the 19th or in the first half of the 20th century and the family are now rich to varying degrees having extended their empires through the generations.
I think in France,at least, the lift companies "rent" from the landowners and the state has some sort of involvement, but that is largely the extent of their reach. They are corporate developments regarding accommodation and I think a Canadian company was involved in developing part of Les Arcs, but not so that the whole resort fell under their ownership.

Mountain restaurants are still, I think, largely the product of historical ownership of the land or the former cow shed upon which the restaurant is now based! Thankfully there is little, possibly nil or no evidence of corporate ownership of on hill catering in their places I go to regularly in Frqnce, Italy or Switzerland. It is frankly impossible to conceive of any alpine resort limiting the on or off hill catering to cheap burgers. There would be rebellion on a grand scale!

Though there are undoubtedly politics involved, it is not the case that he who owns the lifts owns the ski school and operates it exclusively either. So, especially in the biggest international resorts, there are plenty of ski schools and/or independent qualified instructors. Competition has improved the choice and quality of tuition no end. If you want a classic example, take a look at the ski school and instructor options somewhere like Val D'Isere. I have just got back from a hugely successful 4 weeks there on a course with icesi.org/Mountainmasters

So..in answer to your query...do I chose a resort on the basis of the "owners". Nope. I chose it because of the atmosphere, extent and quality of the skiing, and, if I need lessons, the possibity to good quality English speaking instruction.

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To follow up on Perty's comments about France. Ski lifts are considered as a public service, like busses, or trains. Normally public services are run by the state. For a private company to run them there needs to be a "delegation" du service public. That is, the state delegates its responsibility to another body. (L’article 47 de la loi n° 85-30 du 9 janvier 1985 etc.).

In general, small ski areas with just a few drag lifts are run by the local community. The lifts and the land probably belong to the local community itself. There is no DSP because no private firm would be interested in running the lifts because the profits, if any, are too small. The local community makes up any shortfall in operating costs out of local taxation. The model works well unless some mayor gets delusions of grandeur and installs chair lifts or worse, a cable car, which are notoriously costly to run.

In bigger ski resorts that have been created from scratch like la Plagne or Courchevel lifts and land are owned by the local community. The land was generally purchased at the inception of the resort by a compulsory purchase from local landowners. This was to give the local community control over the lands and prevent speculation. I believe Switzerland and Austria have different models. The local community won't have the competence to run the lifts and will tender for someone to do this. The tender process is governed by EU law. Tenders will typically be for 30 years - around the lifetime of a ski lift. The lift operator will run and build lifts and give the resort either a rental or a profit share.

Older ski areas like alpe d'Huez or Val d'Isere operate on this model too - although it has been a long journey of consolidation of individual landowners and operators to arrive at that point. At alpe d'Huez you had different tickets for different ski lifts in the distant pass.

A single interlinked ski domain might have a number of different communities with separate lift operators. Sometimes they fall out for a season or two, as happened at la Clusaz and Merdassier a while back and although the lifts were linked you couldn't ski from one domain to the other on a single pass.

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Drouzin le Mont was for sale 4 years ago. It had been run at a loss for years by a Chalet builder, who would take a 80K hit every year, but re-coup that many times over with the profit on chalets and apartments sold. Once the building stopped, so did the lifts.
The whole thing was up for sale for about 180K. ( But about 300k needed spending on the infrastructure).
Instead the snow canons, piste bashers and chairlifts were sold to neighbouring resorts. ( The "new" chair at St Jean Station, is made of re-used parts from the top chairlift at Drouzin).
The Mairie took the lower section of the resort for 30K which included 3 working drags, and one broken one). They have now dismantled all the hardware, so nothing remains. Apart from the new lift pass ticket office they built, and a new, large, empty hangar for the piste-bashers they do not have. The artificial lake for the non-existant snow canons is empty, but they are engaged in an insurance claim to get it re-furbished following the floods which caused the liner to split.
The mairie still has to pay 30k per year to service the loans it took initially to build the chairlifts.
The mayor's family owns the farm over which some of the pistes ran.
There were 2 restaurants, the owner of one bought the other and shut it down, then his wife died, and the hygiene police shut the second one down.
The whole thing is a big mess, full of lies, riddles and recriminations.
BUT if anyone does want a ski resort, then they should approach the Mairie of Le Biot, who will give them Drouzin for nothing. ( But they will need to put a lift in ).

@WindOfChange that's an interesting story! What a shambles.

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Well I'd say shambolic by circumstance. No small unlinked low lying resort will ultimately survive without very smart niche positioning e.g beginner's paradise, park only or simply becoming a dormitory for more expensive nearby larger resorts. They need to be materially cheaper than bigger places but without critical mass that's hard to achieve. As lift infrastructure at bigger places improved there is no longer the same sense of overcapacity that would push visitors to the overflow places. Although arguably overcrowded pistes might still be a factor but most people seem to accept that.

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It used to serve 250 apartments, 50 chalets and the colony de vacances too, but the problem was they were trying to run 90 days with 8 lifts.
If they just did weekends from Jan 1st, plus all of Feb, and put in one lift running top to bottom, then the running costs would be better. ( CapEx aside). But because you need 4 pisteurs, 4 piste basher drivers and engineers, 24 lifties to provide cover for shifts, resort manager, ticket office staff etc and you have to give them all 35 hr/wk contracts (cost to employer 2100 pp / pm), you are looking at 80K per month just in staff costs.
The only way to make it work is to have flexible woking patterns and part time / zero hours contracts.
There were 2 groups of people interested in stumping up the money to buy the resort ( chalet and apartment owners, and locals ) but both were headed up by people with traditional French views about the working hours, and how the resort used to be run in it's heyday (when the ESF had 20 instructors) etc... that neither could make it work.
It has to be done by people with fresh ideas working with a new Mayor, but all the time the old guard are still on the scene, the general feeling is they will make the same mistakes as previous management entities.
There are small, low resorts run by volunteers, and people who get free passes in return for helping out, but the locals here are very set in their ways, so that scenario is unlikely to materialize for another generation. If it is not too late already, it most definitely will be by then.

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@WindOfChange, how far do people with chalets and apartments there have to drive for reliable skiing?

You know it makes sense.

@midgetbiker, it's amazing, amazing I say, how many ex CMB board members own SERAC. amazing. If one weren't so open minded words like collusion, cartel, complicit might come to mind.

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

Don't be cynical. They were all vetted against conflict of interest by an unrelated international sporting organization.

....FIFA.

A snowHead

pam_w Abondance is 10 minutes to the gondola, St Jean D'Aulps is 15 mins to the gondola, La Pantiaz 15 mins. Chatel 20 mins, Pre la Joue 25 mins, Ardent 20 mins. Back of Mont Chery 20 mins, Bernex is 20 minutes, Thollon les Memises about 25, Heberge Poche / Himmentaz about 20 mins. Leysin 1hr, Les Carroz 1hr, Verbier 1h30 etc...

A snowHead

One company - the management of 15 ski resorts!
https://www.compagniedesalpes.com/en/marques-et-sites#stations

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Yes but it's not the same as the US model. They just manage the lift system.

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@dogwatch, and in Chamonix valley most of the mountain restaurants. Sadly.

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Mountain owners / resort management

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