A slippery slope for Switzerland’s Russian skiers
Roula KhalafRoula KhalafAuthor alerts
Sochi is seeing more visitors as domestic financial woes keep tourists close to home
“It’s complicated,” says the concierge at the W, one of Verbier’s swankier hotels, when I inquire about this season’s dramatically diminished Russian clientele.
Swiss resorts, says the concierge, have suffered from the surge of the swiss franc and Russia’s financial woes — including the collapse of the rouble, sanctions over Ukraine and the plunging oil price. But, putting on a proud face, he claims other European spots are hurting more. He assumes my curiosity relates to the reputation of some Russian skiers for boorish behaviour. He whispers that I need not worry: “We’ve seen none of that here.”
Though it’s entertaining to read about extravagance on the slopes, including an apparent penchant for Gucci sleds, I have little interest in how people choose to spend their money or their ski holidays. My probing has more to do with the impact of sanctions on Russian holidaymakers and their potential repercussions on President Vladimir Putin’s adventurism in Ukraine.
During my week in Verbier, I watched Mr Putin on television in Minsk pledging, yet again, to work for peace in Ukraine. The first Minsk agreement, struck back in September, remained merely ink on paper. I suspect the second one is about to suffer the same fate.
There might be logic in Mr Putin showing flexibility from time to time: it could reduce the pressure for further American and European sanctions and temper the debate over whether to arm Ukraine. It might also create doubts in Europe over the merits of maintaining existing restrictions, which will soon come up for renewal.
Mr Putin’s audience when it comes to peace overtures is not just a frustrated west that has tired of predicting his next move; it is also his own citizens who worry about whether they can still afford an overseas holiday. Resorts from the snow-capped mountains of Europe to the sunny skies of Dubai have registered a decline in Russian tourists in recent months. Many headed instead to the slopes of Sochi, which benefited from $50bn-worth of development for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Russian skiers are relative newcomers to Verbier; St Moritz and Zermatt have been historically more to their liking. Both exclusive and focused on the sports buff (it is “the place where moguls go for moguls”, according to GQ magazine), Verbier appeared on the Russian ski map only in recent years, along with the rise of fancy hotels. Sir Richard Branson added his own touch of glamour to the alpine resort with the 2008 opening of The Lodge, the highly expensive nine-bedroom rental chalet.
It is perhaps in Courchevel — known as “the little Russian town”, according to the Verbier concierge — that the impact of the Ukraine crisis is better understood. The upscale French ski resort was among the first to attract wealthy Russians. Adeline Roux, head of the tourism office, tells me the romance dates back to the 1980s, when a certain Mme Raymonde Fenestraz, a businesswoman who introduced high-end chalets to the resort, went to Russia to market Courchevel to jet-setters. Four years ago, says Ms Roux, middle-class Russian families followed the most affluent there — and, after the new year break, they often came back in March for international women’s day, a popular holiday in Russia.
Last year, however, fewer returned. This January Courchevel still did very well with the Russian skiers who stay in five-star hotels — but the resort hosted a smaller number of middle-class visitors, mainly renting chalets and apartments. “The Russian clientele is very high end, so even if they lost a bit of purchasing power, they are very international,” says Ms Roux. “Other resorts suffered more than Courchevel because they rely more on volume, and on the middle class whose purchasing power has gone down and now prefer to go to Sochi.”
Mr Putin’s recent embrace of diplomacy might have given the middle class some hope and maybe boosted the prospects of a more prosperous March for French and Swiss ski resorts. Chances are, though, there will be more Russians on the slopes of Sochi than Courchevel for quite a while.