The slump has hit big ski operators hard, but funky and innovative start-ups are taking up the slack Tim and Vicky, our hosts at Chalet Joseph, have had a life-changing few months. Both working as lawyers in London (he for a music corporation, she for Reuters), they gave up their jobs, got married, had a honeymoon in Africa, then arrived in the French Alps to work as chalet maids, cooking and cleaning. “We’ve never done anything like it, but it seemed the time was right for a change,” she told me when I stayed with them in Morzine just before Christmas. In fact there’s an air of change throughout the Alps this winter. For a start, Tim and Vicky aren’t alone – in Morzine the seasonal workers had morphed from the usual spotty teenagers into articulate professionals on recession-prompted sabbaticals. But economic hard times have also led to a shake-up among the ski companies. Industry figures suggest there was a 13% slump in the number of Britons going skiing last winter, despite good deals and great snow. Worse, with income in pounds but outgoings in euros, the ski companies were left struggling to make money on those who did travel. By autumn, several had gone bust, including Indigo Lodges, Ski All America and Descent International, the most glamorous chalet company of them all. (Even the Duke of York was out of pocket – he’d booked a chalet in Klosters with Descent for later this month.) The big firms reacted by slashing their portfolios of chalets and hotels for this winter, hoping cutting supply would let them sustain prices and profitability. Crystal, Thomson and First Choice (all part of the TUI holiday group) dropped 40% of their chalets and pulled out of 14 resorts altogether, while Kuoni has stopped operating in Italy, Austria and France. For the small, young ski companies, though, the news wasn’t all bad. Over the past decade, demand for chalets in popular resorts has far exceeded supply, forcing the up the rents charged by their owners. The rare arrival of a new chalet would lead to a bidding war among established operators.

Original Source A Rude awakening in Morzine