Le Figaro Nice
It is not inflation or the purchase of Christmas gifts and even less the increase in the price of passes to Auron and Isola 2000 (by two euros), which will have prevented holidaymakers from flocking en masse to the resorts of the metropolis of Nice during the Christmas holidays.
A month after their opening, the president of the Nice Côte d'Azur Metropolis, Christian Estrosi, drew up an initial assessment of their attendance, and he exceeded all expectations.
In fact, the two resorts mentioned above as well as the Nordic ski resort of Saint-Dalmas-le-Selvage experienced record crowds with nearly 100,000 skiers welcomed during the holidays.
That is a turnover for the three stations of nearly 3.8 million euros, which represents an increase of 12% compared to last year at the same period.
"
This has made it possible to sell more packages, subscriptions and therefore to achieve a better turnover which makes it possible to support more than 2000 jobs in our stations between permanent and seasonal workers
", underlined Christian Estrosi, specifying that the stations recorded 700 additional subscribers.
At Isola 2000, for example, whose ski area was fully opened on December 17, 51,188 skiers were welcomed during the holidays for a turnover of 1.34 million euros.
“
This is record attendance and we are very proud of it.
It must be said that at the start of the season, people really want to ski and come to the mountains.
The week of New Year's Day was particularly busy.
Almost all the hosts were full, the same for the restaurants
, ”rejoices Mylène Agnelli, the mayor of Isola.
The latter also says she is very optimistic for the future and in particular for the February holidays which are fast approaching.
“We also took advantage, it must be said, of the lack of snow in the other resorts, in the northern Alps in particular.
We picked up vacationers from several resorts
,” she continues.
Guaranteed snow cover until the end of the season
Also very optimistic, Christian Estrosi has guaranteed snow cover in the resorts until the end of the season.
"Our artificial snow capacity allows us not only to open at the start of the season in the best conditions but also to hold throughout the season by guaranteeing an underlay and this is particularly useful with the softening we are experiencing"
, he explained.
In Auron, no less than 480,000 m3 of artificial snow were produced this year and 330,000 m3 in Isola.
This is without counting the snow produced last year.
Read alsoRanking of the 200 French ski resorts: ski pass prices, snow cover... which one is right for you?
Always straight in his boots with regard to energy sobriety, the mayor of Nice did not fail to recall that the community had negotiated in 2021
“a fixed cost contract
”, with its electricity supplier.
In other words, this means that the bill will not rise until December 2023. And the president of the Metropolis to plead for
"rational use"
of artificial snow and water reserves.
In addition, the resorts of the Metropolis have decided to produce their artificial snow only during off-peak hours.
