 Poster: A snowHead
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... or Italy.
The claim comes in a marketing campaign to boost winter tourism in Switzerland. The country is experiencing significant growth in visits from the UK, with a 10.2% increase between January and August this year, according to this report from SwissInfo.
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"The single, most influential factor for choosing a destination is the ski resort's altitude," said Jürg Schmid, director of Switzerland Tourism.
The new campaign highlights the edge Switzerland has over its alpine neighbours. Schmid said Switzerland has 29 ski resorts located above 2,800 metres, which is more than Austria, France, Germany or Italy.
And he added that the ten highest Swiss resorts were on average 370 metres higher than their counterparts in neighbouring countries. |
Any comments on these claims?
Are you switching to Switz this winter, or doing the opposite?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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29 resorts above 2,800 metres? Are there ANY resorts above 2,800 metres in Europe? I though Val Thorens at 2,400 (?) was the highest resort.
Do they mean resorts with skiing above 2,800 metres? If so, I would have thought that a better comparision would have been the amount of pistes above a certain height.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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There's a possibility that SwissInfo has mis-reported Jürg Schmid, in that report. That claim isn't in quotation marks, so I wonder if he actually used those words.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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I think Switzerland is full of gems little known to the UK and I'd be quite happy if they kept it that way.
And any look at the map will show a lot of these have skiing above 2800m. Quite what the translation was supposed to mean I'm not sure but there is an awful lot more skiing to be had and this isn't always apparent from the usual stats. This is something I have come to realise only over the last few years.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Most of these resorts are clustered in one canton the Valais area which, inter alia, includes Zermatt and Saas Fee.
Whilst Switzerland has had the reputation being expensive this no longer holds to be true as the british pound has risen against the swiss franc over the past five years or so and therfore it is no more expensive than compartive resorts win France with the possible exception of Verbier.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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I don't know how much of an indicator it is to take the average of the highest 10 resorts. Saas Fee and Zermatt would jack it up for sure.
Anyway, altitude isn't everything. The further east you go in the Alps, the more a continental climate kicks in (colder in winter). Austria was very worried about their low-altitude resorts a couple of years ago, but they're just coming off the best two seasons for a long time. Also, precipitation levels are based on micro-climate, not just altitude. Eg Zermatt is in a bit of "snow doughnut" so it takes a while to build up its accumulation, although its altitude helps it maintain its snow cover well.
But marketing is partly the art of manipulating statistics toward your own ends. 'Twas ever thus...
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