Most skiers have their favourite resorts and a fair idea of where they want to go skiing. So wouldn’t it be great if you could find some flights, go to a resort’s website, put the dates in and get a list of all available accommodation? Then if you book the accommodation, you can book the transfers, passes, skis, ski school and childcare. Then for every segment you book up front you get another 5% off the total price. Only one resort in Europe seems to think it’s a good idea to put all these elements together and a lot of the rest don’t even try and make it easy for you to sort your accommodation out.  Here are some more observations about the way (European) ski resorts promote themselves on their websites:

• Swiss and Austrian websites are generally much better than French and Italian websites. Why is this? The Swiss and Austrian sites are on the whole much more functional and user-friendly.
• A lot of the translation into English really isn’t very good. This is more so on the French and Italian sites, and I know it is harder to translate French and Italian into English than it is German, but I can’t believe resorts with a huge UK clientele use Google Translate and hope for the best. Surely they could at least get a native-speaker to proof read them?
• There are a lot of very obtuse menu headers. For example, Les Arcs has headings entitled Breathe/Move/Glide/Play. I didn’t have a clue what any of them meant.
• Very few sites do anything with the English site other than provide a carbon copy of the main site. It would be nice to see some resorts tailoring their English version of their site for the UK market.
• Consequently, the SEO for a lot of the sites doesn’t appear to be very advanced. You have to really search to find the sites for some resorts.
• As mentioned on my previous post, apart from the odd Facebook page, there’s not much use of social media or any real attempt to interact with skiers.

Here are a few random examples of sites from France, Italy, Austria and Switzerland:

Flaine

Flaine is famous for being less than easy on the eye and its website does its best to extend the theme by being a particularly gruesome affair. Dominated by a very messy animation which features a car that appears to be stuck in the snow and an over-excitable child about to be hit by a sledge, the site feels like it’s aimed at eight year-olds.

The homepage is an assortment of random dates and information (swimming pool is closed, Olympics are coming in 2018!) On the plus side, the English is not too bad, but it’s a struggle to find much else to be positive about. Even on the video of the resort, the animation pops up for no apparent reason.

VERDICT: rope tow

Cervinia

Cervinia isn’t one of the top destinations for UK skiers and they seem intent on keeping it that way. Cervinia’s website comes top on a google.it search for Cervinia, but I couldn’t see it anywhere on google.co.uk.

The site itself doesn’t appear to have been touched much since last season with all rates applicable to 2008/9. The translation only a passing acquaintance with the English language (we aim to make you live the best part of the Mountain with all the infinite possibility of emotion and holiday!) After a little search for accommodation I finally found it under “Reception & Structure”.

There are some nice touches; you can book your ski pass online even if your keycard is from another resort and the “skiline”, where you can log-in and see a graph of your day’s skiing, is a good service.

VERDICT: Poma

Obergurgl

Putting to one side the cheesy corporate shots of a model in a white one-piece, this is much more like it. Professionally designed with a booking engine prominent on the home page.

The Obergurgl site has copy that almost (“be spoilt by the exclusive scenery and the culinary delicacies in breathing taking heights“) makes you think it was written by a native-speaker and although it may not be doing anything new, it has everything a skier would want. It even has a Facebook page, You Tube channel and newsletter. One of the better ones.

VERDICT: high-speed chair

Laax

Flims/Laax/Falera is one of the more interesting resorts in Europe from a business point of view. Many years ago they took the decision to integrate the whole resort under one umbrella company. Modelled on the American way of running resorts, Laax is one of the few resorts in Europe where you can hire your boots in the village and then change them at several points across the ski area.

The town tries to attract younger skiers and boarders and has been particularly innovative with its designer budget accommodation. The website is an example of the resort’s joined-up thinking. It was the only site I could find where you can book everything (accommodation/transfers/equipment/lessons/childcare) without being redirected to third-party sites.

It’s a good site, but for some reason, like the town and ski area I find it rather uninspiring.

VERDICT: heated gondola

If there’s a really good example of a ski resort that is doing it well, please let me know.

Despite the continuing troubles, Sri Lanka still doggedly attracts tourists and The FT visits the south of the island. There’s also Yegen, home of Gerald Brenan in Andalusia and Lijiang in China.

The NY Times stay at an organic farm just outside of Atlanta and do Venice on the cheap.

The Times heads to Eastern Europe with Vilnius and Tiblisi. There’s also Pompeii and Laax, one of Europe’s more forward-thinking ski resorts.

There’s more Eastern Europe in The Independent with Transylvania, and skiing in Michigan.

The Guardian also has Swiss skiing with Engelberg. There’s also Linz, Launceston Farm in Dorset and it’s finally the end of Danny’s Big Adventure. Hooray.