The Resurgence of Skiing

The last couple of years have been tough for skiing. The world’s travel ceased entirely, and for many, a ski trip was the last thing on their minds.

However, interest has exploded once again thanks to a perfect storm of eased travel restrictions and the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Many are now scrambling to book their ski holiday breaks, with flight operators adding thousands of additional seats to ski destinations, and accommodation being booked months in advance.

At allChalets.com, we’re thrilled that the industry is once again edging toward normality and decided to dive into the data behind this latest surge in interest. Where in the UK has experienced the biggest increase in interest? Which destinations are people most interested in?

Our findings are below.

Skiing General Interest

It’s comes as no surprise that general search interest for ‘skiing’ increased sharply from mid-December to early January. Comparing January 2022 to January 2021, search interest was up 125%, and while this is encouraging, it’s still less overall search interest when compared to pre-COVID levels.

January 2019 saw 143,000 average monthly searches in the UK for ‘skiing’, whereas January 2022 experienced a much less, at 106,000 average monthly searches. When you consider the 2022 Winter Olympics is undoubtedly helping to boost these numbers, it’s clear we’re still not at pre-covid search interest levels.

Usually, interest tails off from January into February, but thanks to the 2022 Winter Olympic games, search interest reached the highest point in over two years with 132,000 average monthly searches.

Most Popular Skiing Destinations

When looking at the destinations that UK skiers are searching for, France dominated the overall interest, which again may come as no surprise. Austria came in at 2 ^nd, with Bulgaria and Switzerland experiencing very similar levels of interest during January’s peak period.

On a more granular level, Scotland searchers showed the most interest in France, followed by Austria and Bulgaria.

England is the only region that showed notable interest in skiing in Switzerland, and most interestingly, Northern Island was the only location that expressed more interest in skiing in Austria over France.

Which Regions Experienced the Biggest Surge in Skiing Interest?

When looking at which areas of the UK have the highest search interest in ‘skiing’ since the beginning of December until March, there’s some surprising results.

England has the highest level of search interest overall, followed by Wales, and Northern Ireland and Scotland are joint 3^rd.

On a more granular level, the below table highlights the cities/towns/villages across the UK that experienced the highest level of interest in skiing over the last few months.

Purton, just outside of Swindon, and Chesham, Northwest of London experienced the highest level of overall search interest.

While there are lots of recognisable locations, the smaller areas that have shown impressive interest are the most surprising. These values are calculated on a scale from 0 – 100, where 100 is the location with the most popularity as a fraction of total searches in that location. This is useful for gauging overall interest in skiing without the data being skewed by overall population.

The reason for these areas to experience spikes is hard to gauge. Searches for ‘ski holidays’ paints a similar picture, and it could be due to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics exposing more people to the sport.

One interesting factor is the proximity of indoor ski centres around most of the top 10 locations. Purton, Chesham, Ledbury, Altrincham & Lechlade-on-Thames can all access popular indoor ski centres within a 35-minute drive.

Couple this with the industry as a whole experiencing levels of demand not seen since before COVID, and there’s no doubt that there will be newcomers to the slopes as we approach Easter.