Ski specialists are confident the UK market will remain viable for a long time yet amid concern about the impact of climate change on some European resorts.
They were responding to comments by Laurence Monnoyer-Smith, director of sustainable development at the French national space agency, who last month said the ski industry was “not going to last for long” because of rising global temperatures and warned that destinations in the Pyrenees would lack sufficient snow by about 2050.
She claimed half of European resorts would be in the same position if temperatures were to rise by four degrees by the end of the century.
Reacting to the remarks, Craig Burton, chief executive of Ski Solutions parent Active Travel Group, said the resorts that are most under threat are “not generally resorts that British skiers are going to”.
He added: “Brits generally go to the higher-altitude, snow-sure destinations, which we believe have got a healthy future through this century.
“The likes of Val d’Isere, Zermatt, Tignes, La Plagne, Les Arcs – these are places where Brits go and we don’t see any immediate threat to their viability.”
Pointing to the specific about Pyrenees resorts, he said the region was visited by “less than 1%” of UK skiers booking package trips.
“We don’t operate to the Pyrenees because for a long time the snow has been less reliable – the resorts are at a lower altitude,” he said.
Richard Sinclair, chief executive of specialist ski agency Sno, described the most at-risk locations as “tiny resorts that no one in the UK has heard of ”.
He said: “The demise of the really low and tiny two-drag-lift towns in the foothills of the Alps is perhaps inevitable, but Brits have never gone there to ski anyway.
“UK skiers usually go for at least a week and demand the much bigger and higher ‘mega-areas’ that will remain snow-sure for a long time to come.”
Yet Sinclair also noted shifting preferences among UK skiers as part of a “morphing” of the industry.
He said: “We’re already seeing a growth in skiing to countries in the far north of Europe such as Norway and Finland and across Canada, where winters will always be very cold.
“It seems likely that Scandinavian and Lapland destinations will partly take over the budget end of the short‑haul ski holiday market.”
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