In part due to the depression ski reservations went down this winter.
This is despite of good early season ski accomodation bookings and great snow conditions.
This reduction in skiers follows on from seven winters of continuous growth within the skiing industry, and the numbers contracted from 1.2 million in 2008 to 850000 last season.
Partly due to holiday makers giving their annual snowboarding break a miss, and other skiers who would normally take 2 snowboarding trips, merely had one.
A fall of 15% was felt by the independent travel sector with a few cheap airlines cutting the number of routes to some airports.
Moreover tour operators also saw the numbers going down by 15%.
Even so, the top operators share of the market continued at a healthy 73% and the French Alps remained the most popular holiday destination with about 37% of the skiing market.
Because of this several major ski operators lowered the number of luxury chalets they operate this year.
Catered chalets will witness a fall in numbers due to the fact that a catered chalet costs more for the tour operator in terms of employees and lease if it is unoccupied.
It remains unlikely that we will witness the last minute special offers that were around this season.
Whilst prices are probably going to to increase, they probably won’t rise much.
The 2009/10 winter beyond any doubt poses grave problems for the snowboarding industry that is touched by by the effects of the credit crunch, weakness of the pound, higher fuel costs and high fixed costs for snowboarding companies.
Next winter snowboarders will become more and more cost aware, which will contribute to a reversion of the recent years which witnessed a growth in the independent travel sector.
The big ski tour operators could foreseeable re-gain some of the ground lost to the independent travel sector if they use their buying power to negotiate better costs and pass these savings onto customers as irresistible offers.
