With an average of 53.9 million skier-days sold during the 2014/2015 season, France succeeded to take over the 1st place in the global ranking of ski areas, just above USA.
French ski resorts reported 53.9 million skier days, which are the days of skiing purchased in a ski area, used to measure the number of skiers in any particular ski area. The number however represents a decrease of 2.7%. U.S. resorts reported 53.6 million skier-days (- 5.2%) and Austrian resorts counted 51.8 million skier-days (+ 2%).
Taking into account the low snowfall at the beginning of the season and the Easter holiday coming quite late, the results suggest growing interest of French tourists and foreign visitors in skiing.
In the Northern Alps, after serious traffic problems the winter came to an end at the beginning of May with pouring rains, which caused several damages in the mountains.Nevertheless, the winter season was quite successful there. The Southern Alps,on the other hand, suffered the most during the season reporting a decrease of 8% in the amount of skier-days.
As for the Vosges mountain range (+ 38% skier-days) the remarkable increase in skiers is viewed as a resumption of normal activity, since the 2013/2014 winter had been extremely difficult for the localresorts.
In the Pyrenees, the western resorts along the range were for several days completely cut-off thanks to the avalanche conditions, their access roads were closed, thus reporting significant damages to their visitor numbers (-5% of skier-days compared to the previous season). The Massif Central (0%) and the Jura Mountains (+11%) however enjoyed a positive winter season.
Regarding the size of the ski resorts, the smallest ones reported the best results (+2% skier-days). Medium resorts reported -4%, large resorts had -5%, and the largest resorts counted -2% skier-days compared to the previous season.