All downhill for Pyrenees snow resorts?

Strate­gic busi­ness

Yet, the Cata­lan gov­ern­ment con­sid­ers win­ter sports a “strate­gic” busi­ness for the Pyre­nees. A study by Esade and the Uni­ver­si­tat Pom­peu Fabra found that each euro spent on pub­lic trans­port tick­ets cre­ated an ad­di­tional ex­pense of six euros. How­ever, the Gen­er­al­i­tat is today the di­rect owner of seven of the nine Nordic ski re­sorts, in most cases after fi­nan­cial fail­ure, and only two –Baque­ira-Beret and La Masella– are still in pri­vate hands.

The most re­cent pub­lic ac­qui­si­tion was Boí-Taüll in De­cem­ber, after two years in which the re­sort has been un­able to over­come its fi­nan­cial prob­lems, de­spite gen­er­ous loans. In all, the gov­ern­ment spent 8.3 mil­lion euros on the deal: “The buy-out pro­vides sta­bil­ity and is a guar­an­tee of the fu­ture,” said Alins at the time.

Boí-Taüll's fi­nan­cial prob­lems first emerged with the burst­ing of the hous­ing bub­ble, and two years ago it was forced to go into ad­min­is­tra­tion and re­sort to loans from the Gen­er­al­i­tat. Boí-Taüll is the sec­ond-largest tourist com­plex in the Pyre­nees, with 46 kilo­me­tres of slopes and five ho­tels of­fer­ing a thou­sand beds.

“Our po­si­tion is that, as long as the econ­omy of Alta Rib­agorça does not be­come more di­ver­si­fied, the sta­bil­ity and main­te­nance of Boí-Taüll is es­sen­tial for the county,” is how the sec­re­tary of Em­presa i Com­pet­i­tiv­i­tat, Pere Tor­ras, jus­ti­fies the pub­lic buy-out, adding: “We are con­vinced that, with a process of in­vest­ment and mod­erni­sa­tion, it can be prof­itable. And we are going to put it on the mar­ket.”

The re­sort's for­mer own­ers, Pro­mo­cions Turístiques de la Vall, a com­pany in the Madrid hous­ing group Nozar, will con­tinue to man­age the com­plex for five years, ac­cord­ing to the terms of the agree­ment: “They know the busi­ness and the re­sort. The prob­lems are re­lated to the burst­ing of the hous­ing bub­ble and a lack of re­sources,” con­tin­ues Tor­ras. The Gen­er­al­i­tat and the man­age­ment are now de­vel­op­ing a plan for the re­sort and look­ing into ways of rais­ing more in­vest­ment.

The rest of the Cata­lan ski re­sorts “are strong enough to over­come the cur­rent cli­matic and eco­nomic prob­lems,” says the di­rec­tor gen­eral of the Gen­er­al­i­tat's trans­port de­part­ment, Ri­card Font. The gov­ern­ment and the sec­tor are study­ing ways of work­ing to­gether to pro­vide a re­sponse to the cli­matic ef­fects on the busi­ness. Cur­rently, the idea is to find a way of keep­ing the re­sorts open all year round: “The re­sorts have to be op­ti­mised to the max­i­mum, so that the pub­lic in­vest­ment guar­an­tees prof­itabil­ity and a re­turn,” says Font. This means adding ac­tiv­i­ties to the re­sorts that do not re­quire the pres­ence of snow, such as trekking or canyon­ing.

Yet, even this so­lu­tion is prob­lem­atic, as it will pro­vide com­pe­ti­tion against other com­pa­nies that al­ready pro­vide tourist ac­tiv­i­ties dur­ing the year: “As soon as you begin of­fer­ing non-snow re­lated ac­tiv­i­ties, many com­pa­nies might opt to move to Terra Alta or Montseny,” says López Palomeque, who in­sists that “the busi­ness will have changed in two decades' time. It will need to adapt and cre­ate unique prod­ucts or com­pete on price,” he pre­dicts.

One key to the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of the ac­tiv­i­ties on offer will also re­quire at­tract­ing dif­fer­ent types of con­sumers. The av­er­age age of skiers is now 36, and in the past 10 years, the pro­por­tion of be­gin­ners tak­ing up the sport has fallen from 30% to 19%, ac­cord­ing to ex­pert Lau­rent Vanat. Added to this are also the on­go­ing eco­nomic cri­sis, an in­creas­ingly seden­tary youth and an age­ing pop­u­la­tion. At the same time, the pro­por­tion of ad­vanced skiers has ac­tu­ally risen by 5%, which leads Vanat to rec­om­mend the in­tro­duc­tion of more ski­ing schools. López Palomeque agrees, say­ing: “The age­ing of skiers is a world­wide trend. It is a ques­tion of fash­ion. It has to be rein­vented,” he says.