Cervinia Asks Skiers to Buy Online as Queues Build Outside

Pictures of long queues snaking away up a hillside – which look orderly but not very socially distanced – as skiers queued for tickets and access to the lifts up to Cervinia's ski area in Italy, which opened for the winter season today, have been posted on social media.

However a statement from the ski centre said that the crowds were managed safely. They published different pictures showing skiers adhering to spacing marked on floors within the ticket office.

"On a wonderful sunny autumn day with excellent snowfall conditions we immediately had to face some situations to be managed with a view to preventing the spread of Covid. The protocols were respected by all skiers, who have shown that they know the rules which have been published for many days," a statement from the resort said, continuing,
"There was a queue at the ticket offices, but it was managed safely outside thanks also to the collaboration of the police."

The resort said that all 11 ticket offices, the automatic ticket machines and ticket sales within accommodation facilities in the town were open as well as the option to buy online.



The resort reported 2,000 skiers and boarders arrived to hit the slopes of the cross-border Matterhorn Ski Paradise area which had 50km (31 miles) of runs open from this weekend as the Italian side joined the already open terrain on the Swiss side.

It is one of four major resorts opening its ski slopes this weekend with Kitzbuhel in Austria, Davos in Switzerland and Banff in Canada all opening too.

"We recommend buying a daily ski pass online, remembering that it's always possible to do it the day before," the resort concluded.

Reports coming in from Italy seem to indicate that ski areas already open there (there are four including Cervinia) will now need to close from Monday 26th October for a month as part of a new limited-duration national lockdown aimed at stopping the spread of the virus with the hope that a ski season might still be possible after it is scheduled to end, or at least be 'reviewed' on November 24th. One of the four, Passo Stelvio, was due to close next weekend anyway.

Cervinia has closed, but Sulden am Ortler and the Schnalstaler glacier ski area (Val Senales) appear to be open. Many of Italy's ski resorts are located in autonomous regions so the decrees issued by the government in Rome have to be transposed into local law. Aoste seems to have adopted the latest decree in full, but it looks like South Tyrol hasn't. There is no mention of ski lifts having to close on the Autonomous Province of Bolzano - South Tyrol website http://www.provinz.bz.it/news/de/news.asp?news_action=4&news_article_id=644808 it only says that public transport capacity has to be reduced to 80%.