This new low of just under 868,000 holidays came after the previous season posted a small but hopeful rise of about 4,000 ski holidays taken.
Tui Ski’s Simon Cross put last year’s unimpressive results down to some poor snow – especially in Austria – and the late Easter.
“The good news is that according to the Gregorian calendar there are only three more late Easters in the next 25 years,” joked Cross.
On a more serious note, Cross said it remained to be seen whether ski holidays would ever recover to pre-recession levels.
During the 2007/8 an estimated 1.2 million Brits headed for the slopes, with the sharpest decline in the 2008/09 season, since which the figures have been in gradual decline.
According to the report, the vast majority of Brits are still booking ski holidays with tour operators, with half as many skiers booking their skiing through independents, and half again through school or university trips.
Of these three sectors, the independents suffered most last year, with a drop of 5.8 percent, while tour operator-bookings were down 2.8 percent compared with the previous season. School and university ski holidays fared the best, with a drop of 1.6 percent.
In terms of the most popular places for Brits to ski last year, France is still out front with 33.5 percent of the ski holiday market. Not far behind – and slowly catching – is Austria with a market share of 28 percent. In a distant third was Italy, with a 15.7 percent share of the UK ski market.
Although the most popular destination, France was the biggest year-on-year loser of market share for UK ski holidays, dropping 1.3 percent, with Austria, Bulgaria, and the USA and Canada all also losing Brit holiday bookings.
Increasing their year-on-year market share were Andorra, Italy, Scandanavia and Switzerland all gaining more holidaying British skiers than the previous year. The biggest winner was Switzerland, which boosted its market share by 1 percent, this is however in jeopardy with the new minimum wage ruling (news story here).
