We all like a list (we’re drafting our letter to Santa right now!), but most are not as interesting as this one.
You might well have debated which is the world’s most popular ski resort. Well now we have a definitive answer.
Okay we didn’t do the maths ourselves, but it comes from an impeccable source. Swiss marketing consultant Laurent Vanat has compiled an annual ‘Report on Snow and Mountain Tourism‘ for the last six years.
The report covers 56 countries and ‘99.6% of the volume of the total market’, so with no further ado, here is the official top 15:
The Most Visited Ski Resorts in the World
- La Plagne
- Saalbach Hinterglemm
- Skiwelt Wilder Kaiser (more a region than a resort really)
- Les Arcs
- Ischgl
- Whistler Blackcomb
- Courchevel/Meribel (shame they are not listed separately…)
- Val Thorens
- Vail
- Breckenridge
- Serfaus
- Alpe d’Huez
- Sestriere
- Mayrhofen
- Alta Badia
La Plagne – the most visited ski resort in the world
Over 2.5 million skier days each year
According to the research, La Plagne tops the list with over 2.5 million skier days each year. That includes all the resorts in the area – so Plagne Centre, Belle Plagne, Montchavin and Plagne 1800.
It’s interesting that 12 of the fifteen resorts are in the Alps and only three in North America. Five resorts are in France, five in Austria and two in Italy.
Globally 45% of all skiers head to France, with 36% of all ski resorts in the world located in the Alps.
The Chinese are coming
Other points the report noted is that the number of Chinese that are participating in skiing has increased from 3 million ten years ago to 11 million now. It predicts that that rate of growth will continue, so expect the Chinese to join the Russians as regular visitors to European ski resorts.
In contrast, the ageing population in Japan has seen their participation rates fall from 50 million to 35 million in the same period.