J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by SwingBeep

Looks like Nendaz has adopted the less for more pricing model like Verbier has, last season a 6 day pass for the Printze area cost 274 Francs next seasons Espace Mont-Fort pass will cost 304 Francs. As Verbier_ski_bum said Thyon is now cut off from the rest of the area, last year they had a total income of CHF 7,612,405 of which, 5,299,242 came from sales of the Printze pass, 919,188 from 4 Vallées passes and 740,162 from Thyon 2000. The net income was CHF 219,814. As things stand the outlook for next season doesn't look very rosy.

In February Télé-Nendaz sold its 10% stake in Télé-Verbier, so it looks like Jean-Marie Fournier is now going to concentrate on the Printze area.

Last week it was also announced that Jacques Melly, the State Councillor in charge of the Department for Transport, Construction and the Environment, is going to be the mediator they are hoping to start the process at the beginning of August. The press reports also stated that they were only able to come to an agreement on how to divide the money up in 2006 after mediation.

Verbier_ski_bum, the Farinet changed hands at the end of 2013, it's now owned by an English hotelier / property developer from Brighton. I don't think he will have too much trouble getting permission to convert it into apartments, according to Lex Weber hotels that are more than 25 years old and no longer financially viable can be converted into second homes.

J2SkiNews, it's difficult to see who they could negotiate with, these collective labour agreements are made between the unions and the employers' associations and then made legally binding at their request by either local or central government. There are 3 unions and 3 employers associations involved in this one, I can't see any reason why any of these organisations would agree to amend the current agreement, it's clearly not in their interest to do so. They will of course be getting a sympathetic ear from the Swiss tourist office and Canton Valais but, that's about all they are likely to get, still no harm in trying.

I presume they are keeping the Hotel de Verbier although I can't think why, most 3 star hotels of this age and size in resorts that only have a winter season don't make any money. Maybe they can't get out of the contract in or maybe they have a stake it.

I think the real problem is that Hotelplan made a very bad decision when they decided to take over Enigma travel (Esprit & Ski Total) in 2010. I don't understand why they couldn't see that the loopholes in local employment laws and the European directive on posted workers that allowed them to employ their resort staff on UK contracts would be closed off sooner rather than later. Mind you if they employ people who can't see why they have to pay staff working in countries with different living costs differing rates of pay anything's possible. I very much doubt that the employees of Hotelplan Suisse AG, Hotelplan Italia S.p.A., and Hotelplan UK Group Ltd all get the same rate of pay for doing the same job.

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.

The dispute is about how the lift pass revenue from Thyon 2000 http://www.thyon.ch/home-2/resort/discover-thyon/thyon-2000?lang=en is divided between Télé-Thyon and Télé-Veysonnaz. Up until now it has been split 50:50, but Télé-Veysonnaz reckons it should be split 70:30 in their favour. According to reports in the local press, this amounts to CHF 400,000 a year, which Télé-Veysonnaz wants back dating, making a total of 14 million francs. The dispute has been ongoing for several years, Télé-Veysonnaz took Télé-Thyon to court over it in 2009 and lost. In spite of this Télé-Veysonnaz has maintained its claim, calling into question the legal basis of the judgement. In December 2012 they gave notice that they would pull out of the 4 Vallées and Printze agreements at the end of June 2014.

The lift companies have now agreed to the Canton's offer of meditation, the Canton is currently seeking a mediator who will be acceptable to all those involved.

Whereas Télé-Thyon and Télé-Verbier have multiple shareholders with no one person / organisation holding more than 30%, Télé-Nendaz and Télé-Veysonnaz are controlled by one person, Jean-Marie Fournier. He owns Télé-Veysonnaz outright and is the majority shareholder in Télé-Nendaz, he also owns a property development / management company, Veissonne Immo Promotion, which manages 400 apartments and chalets and owns hotels, restaurants and bars in Veysonnaz. In addition he has interests in at least 18 other companies in the region, including chairmanship of Rhône Média SA the company that publishes Le Nouvelliste the main newspaper in the French-speaking part of Valais. He is a major economic player and business leader in the region, employing about 500 people. His is also a very controversial figure.

He seems to be taking a very hard line on this, the loss of revenue that his companies will incur as a result of this is likely to be far greater than an extra 20% from Thyon 2000. My guess is that there is a lot more to this than how the money from Thyon 2000 is divided up. There are a number of possible reasons for this; he seems to be unhappy that Télé-Thyon sold a 30% stake to Télé-Verbier without giving him first refusal, he owns a 10% stake in Tele-Verbier but has been unable to obtain a seat on the board, it might be that he wants new agreement covering the whole area or he may even want to break it up. When he gave notice that he was going pull out of the 4 Vallées agreement he called into question the very existence of the 4 Vallées saying that it had been a "huge strategic mistake".

He would also prefer that the top station of the proposed lift from Sion was sited in Veysonnaz rather than in Thyon.



http://www.lenouvelliste.ch/fr/valais/valais/sion-et-veysonnaz-s-opposent-sur-la-telecabine-de-la-piste-de-l-ours-498-1313588

He also wants to build a 1500 bed tourist development at Mayens-de-l'Ours.
http://www.letemps.ch/Page/Uuid/c608a398-9d64-11e2-8486-6a361ad02508/Ce_Valais_qui_r%C3%A9siste_%C3%A0_Jean-Marie_Fournier

The issue DaveMac mentions concerns the enforcement of the legally binding collective labour agreement for the Swiss hotel and restaurant industry (L-GAV) http://www.l-gav.ch/index.php?id=22&L=0 it regulates working hours, holidays, notification of termination of employment periods and minimum wages. The minimum wage for an unskilled worker over the age of 18 in 2014 will be CHF 3407 per month payable in 13 monthly instalments (Swiss employees are traditionally paid in this way, they are paid double in November) this comes to CHF 44291 per annum which at today's exchange rate equals £29,004, by Swiss standards it's a pittance. It also requires that employers (and their employees) pay Swiss social contributions, deduct Swiss income tax at source (if applicable) and insure their employees against accidents.

It came into force at the beginning of 1999 and was made legally binding at the request of the parties involved http://www.seco.admin.ch/themen/00385/00420/00430/ contrary to what you might have read elsewhere the Swiss government has not recently changed the law to include chalet operators http://www.seco.admin.ch/themen/00385/00420/00430/01435/index.html?lang=de compare Art. 2 Abs. 2 of 19.11.1998 with 12.06.2013.

For some reason the Cantonal authorities didn't enforce the law as they should have done. When this was pointed out to them they had no alternative but to enforce it, to have done otherwise would have provoked an enormous political storm. If you look around you will see that there are few if any chalet holidays on offer in Switzerland apart from those in Valais.

As OldAndy said they 'float' on the glacier and are held upright by cables attached to the top and bottom stations and the masts (you can just about see the additional cables on the photo). As the lifts move with the glacier they have to be repositioned from time to time, usually once or twice a year depending on how fast the glacier is moving. This is done using an excavator and winches.



It is possible to install chair lifts on glaciers, but I think the top and bottom stations have to be sited on rock. This one is on the Furggsattel glacier above Zermatt, it was the first one built on a Swiss glacier and is Europe's longest glacier chair lift, with 12 of the 18 masts standing on the glacier. The masts were designed to be mobile in order to compensate for the movement of the glacier. The design of the supports allows for a displacement of 75 cm after which they have to be repositioned. The masts are held upright with a third cable.

This one http://img.snowplaza.de/content/WinterPanos/2500/11274.jpg is an aerial view of the area and at 2500 x 2102 pixels (click on it to see it full sized) it should be clear enough, but you will need to view it on something larger than your phone. San Martino is in the bottom left hand corner, at 1113m it's quite low and it's quite a long way from there to Kronplatz.

Steady on, all I did was put the airport and destination into a search engine and choose the best route. I only put a bit of effort in when he said he was going to go via Merano which is miles out of the way.

If you are organising a DIY skiing holiday to Italy a transfer using public transport will usually be easier and cheaper if you fly to an airport that is in the same region as the ski resort you want to visit.

Ponte di Legno is in Lombardy and Venice Marco Polo airport is in Veneto so you have to get from Veneto to Lombardy via an interregional service, in this case it's straightforward as Brescia is on the main line from Milan to Venice. From Brescia there is a regional train to Edolo and from there a bus to Ponte di Legno, even though this is the quickest route the travelling time alone (including the shuttle bus from the airport) is 4hrs 32min and the total cost is €48.75 each way.

The bus service from Edolo to Ponte di Legno starts at Bergamo airport which is also in Lombardy, it operates every day, the journey takes 3hrs and costs only €7.60 each way.

I think you are making this much more difficult than it needs to be, the transfer is long but it's pretty straightforward. Forget the route via Trento / Malé, according to the timetable there isn't a bus to Ponte di Legno and the last bus to Passo Tonale arrives at 16:23 http://srvtt.pegasus.it/OrariDiLinea/OrariDiDirettrice-E13I-646A.pdf Take the shuttle bus from the airport to Venice Mestre, from there take the train to Edolo http://goo.gl/mmk9CC You will have to change in Brescia where you will probably have to wait a while as there are only 5 trains from Brescia to Edolo a day. Have lunch, look round http://www.bresciatourism.it/en/ From Edolo there are connecting buses to Ponte di Legno at 13:15, 15:15, 17:10 and 19:15 if you arrive later you will have to take a taxi. All this assumes that you are traveling on a Saturday, if this is not the case the timings might be different.

The timetable codes are:
GIOR = every day
FER6 = from Monday to Saturday
LUN = Monday
VEN = Friday
sco6 = school bus from Monday to Saturday

I think he means Merano, it's miles out of the way. From there it would take 5 hrs by public transport or 2.5 hrs by car to get to Ponte di Legno. A better route, but still longer (over 6 hours) and with more changes than the one I suggested above would be; shuttle bus to Venice Mestre, train to Verona Porta Nuova, train to Mezzocorona, bus to Mezzolombardo, train to Malè, bus to Passo Tonale and a taxi to Ponte di Legno. There is a shuttle bus between Passo Tonale and Ponte di Legno but it only operates until 6th April.

AllyG, I find that Rome2Rio http://www.rome2rio.com/ is better than Google maps for planning journeys on public transport in Italy. Google makes a right meal of getting from Venice Mestre to Bresica, there's a direct train every hour http://goo.gl/SCMHMr It doesn't list every service, as you mentioned there is a bus service between Edolo and Ponte di Legno http://www.sab-autoservizi.it/htdocs/orari/ricora.htm