Ski Holidays in France - Call us now on Freephone 0800 652 8552

Ski holidays in France - Over the past 20 years, France has established its self as the dominant nation in world skiing with bigger ski areas, bigger verticals and more lifts than in any other country. Unlike other countries, the French planned ski resort development as part of their post-war reconstruction and prosperity programme.

They also had the advantage, having 'peaked late', of not being lumbered with archaic lift systems and infrastructures which modern skiers, used to queue-gobbling high-speed quad chairs connecting perfectly with piste stops, find increasingly hard to accept.

Today the Ski France organisation, which promotes the leading 100 resorts in France, is the most effective national ski-resort promotion body in the world. Similarly the dominant French national ski school, the Ecole du Ski Francais, has increasingly mounted effective promotions of its own. French resort development has been particularly associated with purpose-built ski stations - huge apartment block complexes erected in the middle of nowhere.

These developments are generally recognised as belonging to three phases, with the majority of planned apartment block complexes making up the second phase of the 1960s. Some such centres have a reputation for extreme

ugliness, resembling inner-city tower-blocks, blighting magnificent mountain scenery.

The third generation of purpose-built resorts, personified by design award-winning modern resorts such as Valmorel, have taken the ambience of the traditional alpine village far more to heart in their planning, and offer the best of both worlds. For more information on skiing holidays in France call freephone 0800 652 8552