Is The 4 Valleys Lift Pass No More?

Thanks for the background detailed info, VSB, and thank you for clarifying the change in employment law.
I do not agree that this should be termed "slave labour". It is a free choice, that mainly young people will work in Europe for the winter. I did this myself for several years, working for the ski school, certainly not for the money, but for the life enrichment

Yes, I am sure that it is easy to book diy chalets, but that was not my point. The majority of UK skiers use TOs. The TOs have pulled out of chalet holidays. That is going to have a significant impact on lift companies and local businesses. A few people booking by diy will not significantly affect that ~ many people do not have access to appropriate flights/transfers, many people do not have the knowledge or willingness to do this.
I believe this has been a bad move for Switzerland. Time will tell, but certainly, this is a move that cannot be undone.

You can look at this situation from the position of attracting visitors (who look for the cheapest options) and from the position of maintaining a healthy job market and boosting employment. There is no way any Swiss person who wants to live in the mountains can compete on a labour market with kids from well-off families ready to work for pittance that is even below the minimum wage(29k is not much in Switzerland at all) just for the sake of experience. What should the government do? Tell local population to leave and get a job somewhere abroad because this job market now belongs to British who don't need wages? TO's that are leaving this market are making profits from cheap labour, not because they sell any special services. Good riddance. New TO's will take their place, who can indeed be competitive. It's not that Switzerland has nothing to offer to people visiting it. Plus, I've noticed that France is doing similar things. There are laws that have been in place for years and they will be enforced now. Tourism should benefit local economy not the foreign one. The kind of business that these TO's were bringing was rather undermining local economy, not boosting it.

If the majority of tourists are priced out of the market the effect on the local economy would be catastrophic.

Seems this is an extremely complex issue involving economics, labour rights, tourism ethics, local -v- international wishes, protection of local inhabitants/businesses -v- free competition, free movement of labour etc etc. The one thing that can be guaranteed, regardless of the rights and the wrongs of the situation, is that there will be some unintended consequences.

I believe that a company operating in Switzerland should be paying their staff Swiss wages, which should be taxed in Switzerland. It doesn't preclude free movement of labour at all. I spoke to people in resort and this move is generally regarded as positive. No-one should be paid 100 chf or less a week with 1 day off (which can also be taken away when it's busy). Not in this country, 100 chf doesn't take you anywhere, not even enough for a night out in a pub. Deduce for "living" expenses as you wish, but deduce it from the Swiss wage. Bringing cheap labour is not a competitive practice. It's actually unfair competition. The fact that chalet operators are pulling out only proves it.

I love Verbier, I'd love to return. But it sounds like the cost is going to prevent that happening. If Switzerland can't compete on price with France, we'll spend our money there instead.

I think some people are greatly overestimating the effect that this is going to have on the Swiss market as a whole. In total the British are thought to make up about 3% of the Swiss skiing holiday market. Locally the share is greater, in Zermatt it's 7.5%, with twice as many people staying in hotels as in chalets or self catering accommodation. Whilst this will probably mean the end of the of the budget chalet holiday, the mid range and luxury operators will be able to carry on, many of them have already set up Swiss companies to enable them to do so.

To date only 2 specialist operators have pulled out, between them they ran 7 chalets. The only major TO affected is Hotelplan UK (Inghams, Ski Total and Esprit), Hotelplan UK is ironically Swiss owned, it's part of the Hotelplan Group which is in turn owned by Migros, Switzerland's largest retailer and largest employer. They haven't said exactly how many chalets / chalet hotels are affected. Surely someone there should have known that the Valaisan practice of issuing chalet staff permits without requiring that they had contracts that conformed to the labour agreement wasn't strictly kosher.

The practice was deemed to be illegal last summer so by rights the law should have been enforced at the beginning of last season, but as this would have lead to chaos it was decided to turn a blind eye for another year, which should have given the chalet operators enough time to adapt their businesses.

The 4 Vallées dispute is much more serious as it affects many more people. As things stand at the moment anyone staying at Thyon will only be able to ski there and those staying in Veysonnaz and Nendaz will only be able to ski there, unless they buy extra passes. It also shows how inefficient the operation of the 4 Vallées area is, do they really need 4 companies to run the lifts there? As well as demonstrating how stubborn and childish some of the people in the region are and how they put their own interests above anyone else's, irrespective the consequences, 'La mentalité valaisanne'. They also don't seem to be remotely interested in offering value for money, even though the Verbier Grand Ski area is much smaller (total piste length 192km) they are going to charge as much for a 6 day pass (CHF 355) as they did for a 6 day 4 Vallées pass last year, which they claim gave access to 412km.

If it doesn't get resolved, locals wanting to ski the whole area can buy the Valais Snow Pass, which gives unlimited access to all the resorts in Valais for CHF 1850 (last year's price), which is very good value when compared with a season pass for the Verbier Grand Ski area at CHF 1456.

So, last week Le Nouvelliste published next season's offer from Nendaz-Veysonnaz (60 francs a day, with access to Mt Fort - damn!) with a map of their area. It looks like the guy will try to go for Thyon which is now completely cut off and being the smallest area is likely to take a hit from the split more than other areas involved. How it will affect Verbier in the longer run remains to be seen. Verbier season last longer, generally Nendaz becomes unskiable by April unless the winter is exceptionally snowy.

In other developments Farinet Hotel was sold. Apparently the new owner wants to turn it into luxury residences, but hasn't secured any permits from the commune yet, so next season both Lounge and Après Ski will be open. Then we have to hope that the commune screw him like they did a few people before. Chalet that we rent belongs to an Italian guy who paid over the odds for an old house with a view to buy another three old chalets and build a big new complex in their place. The owners of these chalets refused to sell, so he applied for permit to build a chalet in place of the one he already had and was refused since any serious construction work there will block the only access road. So there is a chance that likewise Farinet will remain as it is for the foreseeable future.