The Compagnie des Alpes, owner of ten ski areas, launches a European call for applications for the opening of rail connections with the Alps during the winter seasons from 2024/2025 from London, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam.
The company, which operates in La Plagne, Les Arcs, Tignes and Méribel, has been offering door-to-door ski trips from London for two years, during the 16 weeks of the winter season, including train transport to Bourg. Maurice in Savoy, transfer to the ski resort, accommodation, ski passes and ski equipment.
A call to European railway operators
The same “turnkey” formula existed from Paris the first year but could not be renewed for this season due to lack of available trains. Also this season, the connection from London has seen its number of places and dates decrease, regardless of the wishes of the Compagnie des Alpes.
“Last year we transported 12,000 clients,” “we confirmed that it is a profitable activity,” Bryce Arnaud-Battandier, director of the group’s Distribution and Hospitality division, explains to AFP, who wants from winter 2024/2025 and for the next two. Winters offers the same offer to English, Dutch, Belgian and Ile-de-France customers.
This call for applications, launched through the group’s subsidiary, the tour operator Tavelski, “is addressed to all European railway operators that can offer trains, complete or not, that allow the transport of passengers heading to the Alpine resorts in one or two rotations per week between mid-December and mid-April,” according to the news release.
“Collaboration conversations are open with other tourism agents in the French Alps” who wish to take advantage of these new connections, he adds.
“Very important customer potential”
Every year “almost half a million Belgian skiers, more than half a million Dutch skiers and more than a million English skiers go skiing in the French Alps,” according to the Compagnie des Alpes, which notes that less than 4% of them take the train.
As for the French, more than 9 million go to the Alps to ski and less than 0.5% of them choose to go by train, preferring the car like the Belgians and the Dutch. 80% of British people opt for the plane.
On the line that starts from Amsterdam and passes through Brussels, a novelty for the group, “we have a very important customer potential,” underlines Bryce Arnaud-Bettandier. It is also about attracting a clientele that can head to other competitive winter sports destinations, such as Switzerland, Austria and Italy. The search for clients outside France also allows ski areas to be filled outside of the two weeks of Christmas-New Year and the four or five weeks of February holidays, which are generally full of French clients.
The group also highlights the “good for the climate” aspect of this approach, recalling that “on average 80% of greenhouse gas emissions come from transporting skiers between their place of residence and the ski resort” and that the train is less polluting than the car or the plane. The Compagnie des Alpes, also owner of leisure parks (Parc Astérix, Futuroscope, Musée Grévin, etc.), surpassed the barrier of one billion euros in turnover for the first time in its history during the displaced annual financial year 2022-2023, including 489.2 million euros for ski areas (+7.2% in one year).
Source: BFM TV
