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France Number One Ski Destination in the World

A huge 57.9 million ski days in France last season

featured in News & reviews Author Robin Deering, Val d'Isere Editor Updated

The winter 2012/13 ski season saw France increase the number of skier days by 5% bringing the total number to 57.9 million, one million more than the USA, making France the most popular ski destination in the world for two years in a row.

France leapt into the lead last winter, overtaking Austria and the US with 55.3 million skier days, after taking third place for 3 years previously.
The great snow depths of last winter are said to have helped these figures increase and, despite new claims that resorts have inflated the number of km's of pistes, France is set to have another popular winter season with searches for 'ski France' steadily increasing above other nations.

France is said to be the number one ski destination in the world due to a number of long standing reasons:

  • Great value ski passes, access to a huge ski area for relatively low cost
  • High number of large connected ski areas, ski areas such as Val d'Isere are quite unique to France
  • Ease of travel; four major airports for the Alps, sub 10 hour drives from the UK and even a high speed rail link from London