Ski resorts in Switzerland and neighbouring areas

The history of modern skiing has its origins in the Norwegian province of Telemark. Around 1800, students brought traditional peasant skis to the capital city of Christiania (today Oslo), from where the new sports equipment began its triumphal march to Central Europe, America and Australia. Skiing’s popularity grew in the 1890s. Until then it had mainly been practised in the low mountain ranges of Europe, including the Alps region.

Although downhill skiing was not invented in Switzerland, it caught on there very quickly, mainly due to the many tourists. St. Moritz is known as the birthplace of winter tourism and sports in the Alps (1864/65) and founded the first Swiss ski school in 1929. However, skiing as a recreational sport and mass tourism didn’t take off until mechanical ski lifts were introduced. The first ski lift was built in 1934 in Davos. With the massive expansion of mountain railways starting in the 1950s, skiing became the most important industry in many Alpine valleys. The drawbacks of this development are unilateral economic dependence, major impacts on the sensitive Alpine ecosystem and a changed settlement structure (urbanisation, construction of second homes).

Winter is extremely important for Swiss tourism. However, climate change and fierce competition mean that as a rule, banks and the government no longer support investments in facilities for ski resorts located less than 1,500 m above sea level. In total, 29 skiing areas are located entirely less than 1,000 m above sea level; the lowest-altitude skiing area in Switzerland is located in Dietikon ZH (460-490 m above sea level), but has no permanent facilities. Many Swiss skiing areas are located directly in the Alps region; Zermatt is considered the largest and highest-altitude skiing area in Switzerland (34 transport facilities and 200 kilometres of slopes). One of the largest skiing areas in the world, Les Portes du Soleil with 204 lifts and 580 kilometres of slopes, is located in the border region between Switzerland and France.
The process of consolidating skiing areas has led to the merging of ski regions in several places, even across national borders. They are sometimes marketed collectively and listed as one skiing area for the sake of simplicity. Numerous small skiing areas have been forced to close down in recent years. There has been a lack of funding for artificial snow and ski lift renovation. Among the skiing areas that have shut down are Girlen, a former World Cup race venue (municipality of Ebnat-Kappel SG), and skiing areas in Erner Galen (municipality of Ernen-Mühlebach VS), Hungerberg (municipality of Obergoms-Oberwald VS) and Winterhorn (municipality of Hospental UR).

Zermatt had the highest number of skier days, with 1.32 million skier days in the 2016/17 season, followed by St. Moritz, Adelboden-Lenk, Les quatre Vallées, the Jungfrau region and Davos-Klosters, with around 1 million skier days each. In the 2014/15 winter season, Swiss skiing areas recorded a total of around 22.6 million skier days, compared with only 21.2 million skier days in 2016/17. Since the 2003/2004 winter season with 29.7 million skier days, the ski stations have experienced a decline of roughly 30 percent. The market shares of the Swiss regions have not shifted significantly since 2010/11, with the exception of slight growth in the Valais and Central Switzerland. A major reason for the decline in skier days is that considerably fewer young people participate in snow sports today compared to previous generations. Nevertheless, in 2016/17 about 2.63 million people went skiing and 747,000 people went snowboarding in Switzerland, 45% of them regularly.