Industry News
On June 23rd, 2016, Britain voted to leave the European Union. While the UK doesn’t officially leave the EU until March 2019, the ski industry is already experiencing some effects of the referendum.
According to The Telegraph, ski holiday prices have already increased since the referendum was passed. Ski holidays are ski trips that take clients to resorts across the world, accompanied by staff that takes care of arrangements, such as food, lodging, tickets, and travel, for their clients. The problem is that Brexit has caused the sterling to euro exchange rate to drop from around 1.35 to 1.15, and in turn has increased operating costs substantially for ski holiday providers.
“Most UK ski companies take bookings in sterling, but pay for bills, including rent on properties, utilities and food in local currency. The weakening pound has seen these costs increase by 15 to 20 percent for operators,” wrote Lucy Aspden, an editor at The Telegraph, whose work mainly focuses on stories in the ski industry.
Brexit will also change laws regarding free movement of labor, causing up to 25,000 seasonal holiday jobs to be lost. As things currently stand, citizens of the UK are able to work in other European countries without the need to acquire a work permit or visa. Brexit changes that, however, requiring visas or work permits, and making it much more impractical for someone in the UK to work for a ski holiday company. If these companies become short on labor as a result of this they will likely have to increase pay rates to attract more staff.
All of these costs are passed on to the people of the UK who book ski holidays. With the increase in costs, companies will have to either increase their prices or cut corners to stay afloat. So while skiers not from the UK, or who simply frequent their local resorts may not deal with drastic changes, those planning on booking a ski holiday should keep a close eye on prices.
