What a difference a bit of the white stuff makes! Or the lack of it, in this case…
Two years ago, we had a couple of decent dumps of snow in Octobber and social media were fairly buzzing with #winteriscoming excitement. The top 50 French ski resorts on Facebook grew their fans over 6% in October 2012. This time last year, we had less and fan growth fell to 3%. This October, so far nothing special and only the glacier skiing resorts, Tignes and Les 2 Alpes, could open. Fan growth was just 1.9%.
Pending the peuf, resorts are having to make all their own running and a few are.
Pace-setters this month were La Clusaz (+9%), Serre Chevalier (+8%) and Méribel (+6%).
La Clusaz ran a competition again:
Serre Chevalier anticipated snow and promised a late November opening if possible:
…and Meribel gave fans a glimpse of what is to come:
Outside the top 50 but worth a mention is Flaine, up 11% in October since it started its #Selflaine campaign:
So get snow-dancing and hopefully we’ll see the numbers – and the snow depths – tick up in November.
Here’s the ranking in full, as recorded on 2 November 2014:
Top 5 French ski domains on Facebook
- Portes du Soleil – 115,906 fans
- Nouvelles Pyrénées – 48,224
- Haute Maurienne Vanoise – 41,250
- Les 3 Vallées – 25,838
- Grand Massif – 12,833
Top 50 French ski resorts on Facebook
- Val Thorens – 165,029 fans
- Megève – 114,978
- Chamonix – 75,219
- Tignes – 56,908
- La Clusaz – 53,992
- Les Menuires – 51,472
- Courchevel – 50,435
- Les Arcs – 48,456
- Val d’Isère – 48,141
- Alpe d’Huez – 41,353
- Les 2 Alpes – 39,354
- Cauterets – 39,122
- La Plagne – 38,377
- Serre Chevalier – 33,393
- Le Grand Bornand – 30,466
- Avoriaz – 29,267
- Saint Lary – 28,074
- Vars – 25,243
- Méribel – 22,385
- La Norma – 17,537
- Orcières – 17,511
- Les Gets – 17,301
- Ax 3 Domaines – 17,233
- Le Dévoluy – 14,277
- Les Sept Laux – 13,322
- Lac Blanc – 13,261
- Les Contamines – 13,045
- Peyragudes – 12,947
- Châtel – 12,500
- Les Orres – 12,477
- Morzine – 12,080
- Montgenèvre – 10,769
- Valloire – 10,051
- Aussois – 9,975
- Grand Tourmalet – 9,696
- Piau-Engaly – 9,346
- Sainte Foy – 9,243
- Les Saisies – 8,928
- Le Lioran – 8,364
- Les Angles – 8,097
- Chamrousse – 7,205
- Gourette – 7,086
- Praloup – 6,461
- La Pierre St Martin – 6,398
- Le Corbier – 5,508
- Samoëns – 5,377
- Les Carroz – 5,086
- Valmorel – 4,998
- Arêches Beaufort – 4,996
- Luz Ardiden – 4,971
Please note: these are official pages only and only those resorts are included that have at least some alpine ski uplift capacity, ie a ski lift. Sorry if I’ve missed anyone and please let me know so this list can be improved for next month. Linked resorts/domains like the 3 Valleys are ranked separately and the count was done on 2 November.
sno notes 