A senior figure at the French national space agency (CNES) has warned that “very robust data” suggests many European ski resorts will have little or no snow in the next 25 years.
Laurence Monnoyer-Smith, head of sustainable development, shared the message during the ‘A World for Travel’ conference in Seville last week.
“Ski is not going to last for long, unfortunately,” she said. “It’s very easy to get very robust data and pictures on snow, because you can see the ski resorts’ snow cover from space.”
After hearing ski industry professionals outline resorts’ diversification efforts, Monnoyer-Smith sounded a note of caution about pursuing expensive projects aimed at long-term success.
Pointing to data collected by satellites, she said: “We’re able to predict which ski resorts will not be able to welcome skiers in the winter in the next 15-20 years.
“They can have a very good time in the spring or summer, but investing money to try to gain a couple of years [of skiing] might not be very wise.”
She added: “Skiing in the Pyrenees is going to be over in 2050-ish. In Europe, for probably half of the ski resorts in the middle of the century, by 2050, there will be very, very little snow, meaning no skiing.
“If the temperature increases by four degrees by the end of the century, it will be pretty much the end of skiing in Europe. And because of water [scarcity], we can’t imagine we’ll just make the snow.”
Sébastien Travelletti, chairman of Anzère Tourisme, chief executive of Swiss Peak Resorts and vice-chairman of Magic Mountains Cooperation, said it was important that resorts offered additional activities on top of skiing. “It’s really key to have something more like an amusement park and ski is part of it, rather than ski-only,” he said.
Noting uncertainty about the length of the ski season in the future, he added: “In the next 10 years, will we have snow? I don’t know. But when we check our investment plan, we think we’ll still be skiing in 2050, but how long will the season be?
I don’t have an answer on that, but I think we have a good future.”