Ski Esprit (Inghams)

A snowHead

Just had an email to say that as of the end of this current season Ski Esprit will be closing. Anyone else seen this. If it’s true it’s a real shame as we have had great service from them specifically for child care they provided and a great family holiday.

A snowHead

Just seen an announcement on Skipedia FB page - cited 'operational challenges' as the reason

Never used them myself but they were always the primary recommendation for family trips where childcare was a priority.

A big shame to lose a TO

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

That’s very sad. I enjoyed some very memorable holidays with them.

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is ski esprit a different operation to esprit?

as the latter is still operating a website offering ski holidays for 2024/25 season!

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No this is ski esprit.

Nicola, we wanted to let you know about an important update on the future of Esprit Ski. 
 
We’re proud to have spent 41 years helping families make lifelong memories and introducing many children to the joy of skiing along the way.
 
Regretfully we have made the extremely difficult decision to make the 2023/24 season Esprit’s last winter. Moving forward, we will place all our focus, and our passion for skiing, into our sister brand Inghams.

We understand you may find this news disappointing. We thank you for your interest in Esprit. Our Esprit family ski holidays are still operating as normal this season, so if you’re thinking about heading to the mountains this winter, there’s still time to travel with Esprit one last time. We hope you’ll join us in .....

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A real shame we used Ski Esprit until HannahW went to high school, always had good fun and they were very professional ... no more gunging at the end of the week Sad

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I think their business model was doomed when the government decided that the best way of improving school attendance was to hand out fines to middle-class families with high-achieving kids rather than tackle chronic non-attendance from kids with more troubled backgrounds. You can't run an profitable operation when most of your customers can only legitimately use your services for 4-5 weeks a year.

After all it is free

I'm not surprised at all. Most millennials and gen z are more eco conscious and quite frankly can't afford this type of holiday.

Well thats very sad and I only booked with them in the last week or so for this season, lets hope our trip to Italy goes as planned still.

Very few companies specialise in families these days too - there used to be a few but Mark Warner are pretty much gone and so it looks like Neilson and their small offering are pretty much it now as a main operator.

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What Jonny Jones said.
We had a great holiday with them when the kids were little and our Feb HT was a week earlier than the rest of the UK for some reason.
The staff were good but spent most of the week deep cleaning in preparation for the 'Really important' customers at Half Term.. Made us feel very unimportant..
Shame as also a good employer of UK kids wishing to do a season, but don't mention the B word..

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@Kamikaze Pete, by the sounds of it, this season is fine, but they’re not offering anything going forward

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You know it makes sense.

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

That’s a real shame , we had great holidays with them age 4 to 11, then went over to Inghams

Brexit almost certainly was a significant contribution as they were much less able to employ young British childcare and chalet staff

A snowHead

It is sad, a real pity that other parents won't have the opportunity to have their children learn to ski with the support (in and out of lessons) we did. We had some great holidays with Esprit, and more importantly our daughter grew up loving skiing.

I am sure the usual suspects will deny it, but I cannot help thinking that once they lost their ability to use British-qualified nannies - which gave parents of the youngest children a lot of confidence to book with them - they struggled to make the concept work economically.

A snowHead

“ cannot help thinking that once they lost their ability to use British-qualified nannies - which gave parents of the youngest children a lot of confidence to book with them - they struggled to make the concept work economically.”

Exactly this.

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

What a shame! A decent company that I enjoyed family ski holidays with in La Ros back in the day.

I can well imagine the challenges facing their business model these days.

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Just looked at my old photos… almost 11 years ago to the day that I took my family on their first ski trip. My son had just turned 5 (a week before) and my twin daughters were 7 1/2. It was the first of several successful ski trips with Esprit, and many more after that.

If it wasn’t for the ease that esprit made everything easy (particularly the getting kids to/from ski school), we may not have gone back again all together.

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Have great memories of many Ski Esprit holidays. Considering the resorts they were at, back in the day, I thought they were good value. Childcare staff always good too. Will be missed.

After all it is free

another thread on same subject here
https://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=168244&highlight=

@paulhinch, what I was trying to say in a light-hearted way was that 20 kids each missing one week of school has the same impact on attendance statistics as one kid missing 20 weeks, but the long-term consequences of the latter are much greater than the former.

My problem is with politicians who put improvements in their KPIs ahead of real educational outcomes.

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Miniroll 's first skiing experience was with Esprit, age 2*. They were great, she loved it and fell in love with snow, hills, and the whole mountain shebang. As people above say, it is a shame but understandable, that the business model no longer works.

I like that they have made the announcement early enough such that people are not expecting them to be available next year. Shows respect for their customer base.

*She's now doing the season as a chalet slave (with VIP) so I like to think of it as paying forward...

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The "cost of living" crises is probably also having a huge effect - those most likely to use Ski Esprit probably also have humungous mortgages as they are at that stage of their lives, and pre the Truss budget would have happily overstretched themselves on a 1% mortgage.

We've seen the same thing on our flotilla holidays - its all oldies like us whose mortgages are paid off.

Last year having taken advantage of a "2 weeks for the price of 1 offer" we were offered to stay on for another week for a pittance and it would have been the first week of the summer school holidays, in previous years that week would have been fully booked in January.

We had to decline as hubby had to get back to work - but we are torn between hoping the same happens this year because we are retiring and could take advantage or worrying that if it continues they will go bust! Unfortunately their "regular" prices have gone through the roof - presumably to cover the lack of customers - which means we are playing chicken waiting for a discount. In previous years (we've been using them 20+) there were NEVER any special offers so you could book early with confidence you weren't going to be alongside someone who paid 50%. I'm really not sure the new discount model will work as most of their customers were very loyal, but we all now know that if you wait you are likely to get offered a deal. We talked to people like us who used to book 18 months in advance but are now waiting till the week before.

I booked with esprit for the 25th Feb at the start of the month- so they have done some late deals this year too but capacity has been a question people with children have to look at closely

You know it makes sense.

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

Pretty much tragic. Taking kids out of school (until the ridiculous rules and fines) hurt no one . The children learned to ski, enjoy foreign food , the local surroundings & most importantly socialise perhaps out of their usual comfort zone.
Yes , everything had changed since covid and Brexit.
Us; we miss Chalet Violetta in Canazai. Full of kids and lovely atmosphere

A snowHead

@Kamikaze Pete, ski famille do and on balance we had better experiences with them than Esprit. Don't use either now though

A snowHead

I think it's a sad loss. Long story but I once ended up as a solo middle-aged male in an Esprit hotel for a week. I thought the set-up was great, everyone (kids and parents) seemed very happy and I absolutely put it on my shortlist for how I would approach skiing with kids should any female of child-bearing age still be interested. Laughing

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@NickyJ,
He did say it was a long story

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@NickyJ, that sounds right for chalets but the hotels include ones that are Inghams hotels with Esprit childcare and the hotel is bookable through either, so I suspect @Je suis un Skieur was technically in an Inghams hotel with loads of Esprit guests.

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There were complaints one time in their Val D’Isere hotel (was it called Crystal?) when four 20 somethings without kids stayed there. A late booking to fill empty rooms I think.
Wouldn’t have been a problem except they were regularly pi**ed by dinner time. They also complained about kids annoying them! Laughing

‘Tell us about it’ came the stern reply.

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@NickyJ, My OH and a friend went on an Esprit holiday to Montchavin about 30 years ago! It was a last minute cheap deal. I expect the rules changed in latter years.

After all it is free

I know some people at Ski Famille. They say they are very surprised at the demise of Ski Esprit. In fact, many of the top people at Ski Famille have been part of Ski Esprit, so they are saddened by it, too. Anyway, they say there has been no decline in bookings and are close to being at full capacity for the season, and this includes launching a new Club Hotel with 94 beds.
https://www.skifamille.co.uk/chalets/chalet-hotel-cocon-des-neiges/

So, I think the argument that the market is declining could be false.

While they may be full the number of properties they have is only a fraction of pre covid so I am not surprised. They were built on British staff which are all harder and more expensive to employ

It’s a shame as for us there wasn’t anything was like it for the price and what you got

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Ski Esprit (Inghams)

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