For the ski season ending now, the United States have tallied around 61.5 million “skier-days”. It’s a bit better than last year (60.4) but not as good as our record-breaking 2022-2023 winter season when we hit 64.7 million.
For those readers not too familiar, a "skier-day" refers to a day of skiing purchased at a ski area. It's a unit of measure used to track the number of skiers visiting a particular resort. For example, a season pass is often considered to be used an average of 20 skier-days. Another way to define it, is a count of how many skiers are using a ski area on a given day, for an entire ski season, essentially a unit of measurement for the number of skiers at a ski resort.
It must also be noted that if only 5% of skiers come to ski in the US from abroad, the picture is vastly different in Europe. France, that it’s 11% cheaper than Austria and 17% cheaper than Switzerland, accounts for 35% of foreign visitors.
In Austria, an impressive 66% of ski resort guests are foreigners, of which Germans make up by far the largest group, followed by the Netherlands, the UK, and Czechia. Italy is close with 54% foreign skier visits, being particularly popular with Polish, Czech, American, British, and German tourists.
Japan’s growing market from Australia and America is booming, while its domestic market is falling away. An aging demographic is not being replaced by younger generations in sufficient numbers. While foreign tourists are boosting the dwindling numbers of local skiers (around 50% these days), many Japanese resorts are reaching a point of fatigue with foreign skiers and boarders due to their disrespectful attitudes.
As for Switzerland where a record 35% of the population skis, foreign visitors keep declining (they’re only 37% now) as a strong Swiss Franc has resulted in many leaving to ski and board in cheaper Alpine regions, like Austria, Italy, or France.
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