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End to ski hosting in France

End to ski hosting in France

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Started by AllyG in France - 299 Replies

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AllyG
reply to 'End to ski hosting in France' posted Feb-2013

Mountain Addiction wrote:
Someone who doesn't want the hosting doesn't pay any less. It's a service we provide for free. There are lots of things 'included' in the price, such as meals, wine, etc, but if someone doesn't want them, they don't pay less. And as we aren't receiving any form of remuneration for the service which we volunteer we aren't breaking the law...


Hi Mountain Addiction,
I'm not trying to 'get at you', I'm just worried that you could be breaking the law without realizing it, and get arrested for it. I assume you are self-employed, so you would have to prove that you weren't 'working' when you're ski hosting.

It's all very well saying it's 'free' but, as the others have said, I don't think it is. I mean, do you also allow guests from other chalet companies to join in? And you do advertise it as part of the holiday package.

If you were really doing this voluntarily, for no remuneration, I don't think you could advertise it on your website, and you'd have to allow others to join in. So you'd be a sort of volunteer resort guide, doing it out of the kindness of your heart, on your day off. And I'm not at all sure how you'd be placed, as far as insurance and public liability etc are concerned, if anyone had an accident whilst ski-ing with you.

I would very much like ski hosting to continue, but I think it's gone past the stage where British chalet operators etc. can pretend they're not doing it because they're not officially paying the ski hosts any wages.

Snapzzz
reply to 'End to ski hosting in France' posted Feb-2013

Mountain Addiction wrote: either way we're not employed as Ski hosts.





Sorry, i don't mean to be argumentative, i dont agree with this situation at all but......

If you/your guys are hosting a group and are being paid for that days work in one way or another then the french law applies.
The client may not have paid for that service but the guide is getting a wage for that day. That is the point.

And as already pointed out. The fact that your service is 'included in the price' doesn't make it free. It is part of the price paid so you would need to reword statement or simply not mention it at all.

Mountain Addiction
reply to 'End to ski hosting in France' posted Feb-2013

Snapzzz wrote:
Mountain Addiction wrote: either way we're not employed as Ski hosts.





Sorry, i don't mean to be argumentative, i dont agree with this situation at all but......

If you/your guys are hosting a group and are being paid for that days work in one way or another then the french law applies.
The client may not have paid for that service but the guide is getting a wage for that day. That is the point.

And as already pointed out. The fact that your service is 'included in the price' doesn't make it free. It is part of the price paid so you would need to reword statement or simply not mention it at all.


It's only a 2 man company, we do everything ourselves... we do not draw a wage from our company... ergo... we are not a paid ski host

AllyG
reply to 'End to ski hosting in France' posted Feb-2013

Dorset Boy wrote:This all started in the late 80s when the ESF took Ski Cocktail to court in an effort to prevent them setting up the first private ski school in France. They lost and then turned their attention to the UK tour operators ski guides, with arrests being made every now and then.

The problems include too many Brits thinking they can ski when they should still be taking lessons, and using the guiding services as a free ski school light. There have also been guides over the years who were simply not competent. The protectionist nature of the ESF is another problem.

There should be a simple solution - licence the guides. They should have to undergo a week's mountain safety and leadership course at the start of the season. The course content could surely be agreed between the TOs and a 'reasonable and forward thinking ESF'. Fail and they're out. Also there should be strictly enforced limits to the size of guiding groups and the minimum skiing ability.

It's a shame, and the ESF will do themselves no good in the eyes of many British skiers. The shame is they've picked on a small special TO, Le Ski, and not one of the big boys who might have the financial muscle to take the ESF all the way to Strasbourg....


This is what Dorset Boy said on page 1. Clearly he was streets ahead of me on this, because it took me several pages to realize that he was quite right!

The problem is, that as British holidaymakers who like ski-ing in France, we can't simply change a French sports law to suit ourselves!

It would be great if all concerned could get together and come up with a solution to this problem. But according to what I've read, they did try to do this before the recent court case came up, but they failed to reach an agreement.

Billip1
reply to 'End to ski hosting in France' posted Feb-2013

I agree with Dorset Boy's idea; makes sense. I guess it could marginally put up TOs' prices though, as the cost of the training and licensing scheme would have to be covered somehow. Still, probably not a big deal.

AllyG
reply to 'End to ski hosting in France' posted Feb-2013

billip1 wrote:I agree with Dorset Boy's idea; makes sense. I guess it could marginally put up TOs' prices though, as the cost of the training and licensing scheme would have to be covered somehow. Still, probably not a big deal.


The trouble is that apparently, as the law stands, the ski host would have to be a fully qualified ski instructor up to French standards. And I think someone said earlier that it takes about 5 years to reach this level.

I suggested that maybe BASI Level 1 (which is the introductory instructors level and is fairly easy/cheap/quick to attain) would be sufficient for the ski hosts, but there would have to be a big shake-up in the regulation of snowsports instruction/ski hosting in France before this could happen.

Edited 1 time. Last update at 26-Feb-2013

Tin pot
reply to 'End to ski hosting in France' posted Feb-2013

I've got seven pages into the debate...

Can someone clearly state what was legal that is now illegal, or link me to a post that states the same?

Of course the French are protectionist, that's a given, and will never change. And yes, it's a hypocrisy of the EU - one of many.

AllyG
reply to 'End to ski hosting in France' posted Feb-2013

SwingBeep wrote:As Ian Wickham mentioned earlier this has been going on for years. There was article about the same issue in The Daily Telegraph on 19th Dec. 2001 shortly after the French ministry of sport enacted the current law http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatnews/4180074/British-ski-guides-hit-French-resistance.html

As the law is pretty clear and the penalties are quite severe (up to 1 year's imprisonment and a fine of up to 15,000 Euros) http://www.legifrance.com/affichCode.do?idArticle=LEGIARTI000006547567&idSectionTA=LEGISCTA000006167038&cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006071318&dateTexte=20080208 I'm quite surprised that the TOs offered this service at all and got away with offering it for so long.


An extract from the Telegraph article says this:
'Some guides have basic instructor qualifications but, under French law, only holders of the highest of the three BASI (British Association of Snowsport Instructors) grades are entitled to work in France as an instructor. Training for this qualification takes around five years.'

Apparently ski hosting using unqualified guides has been illegal since 2001 (unless they are true 'volunteers'), but for some unknown reason it seems that the French have now decided that 'enough is enough' and they're going to stop it.

So what they are saying is that ski hosts must have BASI level 3 (which apparently takes 5 years of training) in order to work legally on the French ski slopes, even though ski hosts do not instruct.

Topic last updated on 22-November-2013 at 00:18