The Catalan Tourist Board is preparing to promote skiing to UK consumers in time for the 2010-11 winter season.
Director Miguel Angel Cusi said ski resorts in the Pyrenees have been made more accessible to the British public following the opening of the Lleida Alguaire airport in the northwest of Catalonia last month.
Although there are no direct flights from the UK to the new airport, this could soon change. Cusi said the tourist board was in talks with a UK tour operator, which he refused to name, to launch a ski programme in time for next winter.
“This new airport would allow us to show off north-west Catalonia and would give us access to more than 11 of the Catalonian ski resorts that offer different levels of quality,” he said.
“There are three to five-star resorts available and I think the trade would be interested in our winter offering.”
While Cusi expects only a small number of Brits to visit the Spanish ski resorts initially, he believes those who come will be motivated by the opportunity to visit newly available resorts. There is also the added benefit that the airport is about an hour from the slopes.
Cusi said the promotion of the ski resorts came in a year when the Catalan Tourist Board expected little growth in the number of Brits visiting the region, largely due to the strength of the euro against the pound.
Last year, 2.5 million Brits visited Catalonia, with 675,000 of them visiting Barcelona.
Overall, international visitor numbers to Catalonia in 2009 fell by between 5% and 10%.
Comment: Unusual ski trips
Travel Weekly deputy features editor Joanna Booth selects some other underappreciated ski destinations:
Poland is great value and not that well-known. It’s also seen as a higher standard than Bulgaria/Romania. Lebanon, Japan and Chile are a good bet for something a bit different, and the Mail recently published a feature on volcano skiing in Nicaragua, which is as weird as it gets.
Got any ski recommendations of your own? Let us know on the travelhub forums
Got any ski recommendations of your own? Let us know on