POSTED: May 29th 2012
NewsUpdate
Sports Tourism: FIS chief recommends spending holidays on the ski slopes over the beach
Sports Features Communications
May 29 – The head of the International Ski Federation (FIS) Gian Franco Kasper was speaking out during the SportAccord convention recommending the winter sports resorts to boost their holiday tourism packages and make them more attractive than beach travel.
“Winter sports tourism is a big challenge. Races are an instrument to promote winter tourism, but with cheap flights to the Caribbean and warmer places, where there are guaranteed weather conditions, leisure skiers can be attracted elsewhere. Owing to that, the prices have to be realistic at winter sports destinations.”
The FIS also has launched the “Bring Children to the Snow” multi-year campaign idealized to bring more young people to the slopes.
Kasper added, “We have to do something for the next generation. Children up to the age of 12 need to be able to get interested in skiing and they can only do that if the resorts lower their prices.”
The next winter Games will be held in Sochi, Russia in 2014 and following that PyeongChang, South Korea in 2018. The main message of the PyeongChang bid was to open the winter sports market in Asia so much is anticipated that this edition of the Games will give an infusion to interest to ski in Asia.
He added, “Russia is a huge market and South Korea will be interesting too.”
However he secretly hopes that his hometown of St. Moritz-Davos will put forth a bid for the Games at some point, “The NOC still needs to make a decision on whether to bid but it would be nice to bring the Games back, but of course it would not be easy to win the bid,” he added.
Keywords · FIS · Gian Franco Kasper · tourism · SportAccord
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