the winter sports market | France

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The tourism winter refers to all tourist activities practiced in winter in France: mountain sports, hiking, mountaineering, climbing, etc. Adjacent activities related to the catering and to the accommodation during tourist stays are included in the global winter tourism market

Each year more than one in ten French people make one or more trips to the mountains in winter and nearly two out of ten French people stay there every year, which shows the significant potential of this market in France. The people most attracted by tourist stays in the mountains in winter are people over 35 years old, generally with a view to a family stay. The most common activities are skiing and snowboarding but also the sled to dog hiking and wellness activities such as thermalism and balneotherapy.

With the rise of the online booking of stays (Booking.com, Lastminute, Airbnb), it is now easier for tourists to book their tourist stay in France and this penalizes the traditional pure travel agencies that used to operate on the market. However, the mixed evolution of purchasing power of households in France penalizes domestic winter tourism attendance, which is offset by the foreign attendance in particular Russian, Asian and European, which populates ski resorts in France every winter.