Skiresort Service International Publish Top Resorts For 2008-9

The German based Skiresort Service International has announced its three TOP-Resorts of the season 2008-9 in their annual Awards, staged since 1998/1999.

"It was a fantastic season, with a lot of snow, mostly good weather, a new world record and a lot of new test reports. We visited 70 different ski resorts in eight countries and a sand ski area in Doha/Qatar." said Oliver Kern of Skiresort Services International.

There are 15 categories in which a resort is graded. The maximum of stars a ski resort can achieve are five in each category, or a total maximum profit of 75 stars.

Skiresort Service International put SkiWelt Wilder Kaiser-Brixental in the Austrian Tirol top with 71 stars, commenting,

"The SkiWelt Wilder Kaiser-Brixental expanded and modernized the already perfect area every year with new trains, improvements to the slopes, and connections in the ski area. In the last season there were three new eight person gondolas and a new high speed six person chair lift in operation and Westendorf has been completely integrated into the SkiWelt."

In second place Italy's Val Gardena in the South Tirol region and included in the Dolomiti Superski pass, scored 69 stars.

"In Val Gardena you can ski or ride on endless slopes below the Sassolungo and thanks to the famous Sella Ronda in Val Gardena, you can also reach many other ski resorts of Dolomiti Superski around the Sella massif. Every year old lifts are modernized and slopes are improved." said the judges.

Ski-optimal Hochfügen-Hochzillertal was placed in joint second with 69 stars, "With the merger of the two areas Hochfügen and Hochzillertal in December 2004 and due to the modernization and world class mountain restaurants the resort can again be a TOP-Resort."

Seven other resorts in the top ten included five more Austrian Ski Resorts (Mayrhofen, Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis, Hintertuxer Glacier, Warth-Schröcken and Großglockner Resort Kals-Matrei) as well as Mammoth Mountain in the US and Val d´Isère (Espace Killy) in France.
Courtesy of and © Snow24 plc

7 out of the top 10 in Austria, Mr Wickham. Interesting.

Tony_H wrote:7 out of the top 10 in Austria, Mr Wickham. Interesting.

I wouldn't read too much into that, they are German, it would be surprising if they didn't have more coverage in German speaking areas and have a preference for the stations closer by like sud Tirol.

It's a bit like a UK survey turning up the Val d'Isere and the Portes du Soleil are the top, it's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy.

ise wrote:

Tony_H wrote:7 out of the top 10 in Austria, Mr Wickham. Interesting.

I wouldn't read too much into that, they are German, it would be surprising if they didn't have more coverage in German speaking areas and have a preference for the stations closer by like sud Tirol.

It's a bit like a UK survey turning up the Val d'Isere and the Portes du Soleil are the top, it's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy.

You beat me to it ise, Mr H you must stop this rest of europe bashing :D :D

still interesting though, this sort of list probably throws up places people in the UK wouldn't hear of otherwise.

It's just all of these surveys and reviews are useless if you take them too literally.

ise wrote:

Tony_H wrote:7 out of the top 10 in Austria, Mr Wickham. Interesting.

I wouldn't read too much into that, they are German, it would be surprising if they didn't have more coverage in German speaking areas and have a preference for the stations closer by like sud Tirol.

It's a bit like a UK survey turning up the Val d'Isere and the Portes du Soleil are the top, it's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy.

You are alleging bias, shirley not :shock:

I reckon the skiing public is a bit smarter these days, so it's logical that a report with a pre-determined outcome, will only be of interest to it's target audience, because it was written with that sole intention.
Independent thinkers do their own research.

bandit wrote:

ise wrote:

Tony_H wrote:7 out of the top 10 in Austria, Mr Wickham. Interesting.

I wouldn't read too much into that, they are German, it would be surprising if they didn't have more coverage in German speaking areas and have a preference for the stations closer by like sud Tirol.

It's a bit like a UK survey turning up the Val d'Isere and the Portes du Soleil are the top, it's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy.

You are alleging bias, shirley not :shock:

I reckon the skiing public is a bit smarter these days, so it's logical that a report with a pre-determined outcome, will only be of interest to it's target audience, because it was written with that sole intention.
Independent thinkers do their own research.

It's not really bias in a bad way, their audience is German so if they produced a list of great stations in the rockies it wouldn't be a lot of use to their readership. I've still got a couple of German atlases of ski stations from when we lived there, really well written and researched.

What you can be sure of though is this survey will be more accurate than anything produced in the UK, the UK ski guides are so comically bad as to be useless. Reviews are written by people who show no sign of visiting the place they review, or no sign of having been anywhere else, or got it all on a freebie :roll: The Bodo-Kachari (a Tibeto-Burman hill tribe) guide to European Ski Resorts (print run of 1, written on bark, published 26 BC and not available on Amazon) is dramatically more accurate than anything in the UK.