Back to Normality…please!

We’re ready and excited to be able to open our reservations for next Ski Season 2024 and to help more people discover the benefits of a convenient short ski break in the French Alps.

A Quick Review of Season 2022/23

Let’s not forget that last season (Ski 2022-23) was the first ski season for 3 years not to have been impacted or disrupted by Covid. After 3 tricky seasons (with 1 completely missed due to lockdowns and closed resorts) it was great to be able to finally put those uncertain times behind us and operate a full ski season without any travel or border restrictions.

However, the snow didn’t quite play it’s part and a very mild period over New Year meant that snow coverage was thin in the early season. A dry period throughout February (amazingly cold and sunny though it was!) did not help and we never really established a good base of snow below 2,000m of altitude across the whole of the Northern Alps.

Having said that – all of our guests got out skiing every day, and the piste conditions were excellent for most of the season… We always had “just enough” and they looked after the piste fantastically well in Le Grand Bornand so it was not all bad. It just wasn’t a season for big fat powder skis!

For us – it was just great to see so many of our regular guests back and enjoying the skiing and their time in the mountains. We had an awesome team at the Aravis Lodge and were delighted to finish the season with a clean-sweep of 5* reviews on Trip Advisor.

As in this past season, and following Brexit, we can expect a more diverse range of nationalities as our Ski Weekender team must be made up of EU passport holders. We are delighted to welcome back a few of the team again next season. David will once again be working his magic in the kitchen, and Laura’s big smile will be welcoming guests at the front desk.

As everywhere, we have seen prices rise significantly and there have been challenges across all aspect of our business operations (fuel, food, energy). In the face of rising energy bills, ski resorts have been forced to increase ski lift pass prices significantly and transport costs have also gone up (due to lack of capacity pushing demand and prices up!)

There’s good news in that after a couple of years of post-Covid shortages we’ve been able to source some new skis to update our range of hire skis at the Aravis Lodge, and the new restaurants and bars in St Jean de Sixt centre have been well received by our guests… with the new pizza place a real hit!

Our accommodation partners are all keen to work together again, and they love welcoming our friendly Ski Weekender guests to their hotels (even in preference to many local French guests for many of them!)

So – it’s very much business as usual and we’re looking forward to another great season, and building on the amazing quality of service we were able to deliver to our guests this year in 2022-23.