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By Bill Fogarty If you read my take on springtime in Zermatt (www.zermatt.com) you know now that a popular winter resort does not have to close completely after the main winter season. The key words here are “have to”. If Zermatt was busy during the week after Easter, Courmayeur, the beautiful resort on the Italian side of Europe’s highest mountain, Mont Blanc, was a ghost town. Heck I think that even many self-respecting ghosts would give it the cold shoulder. A walk up the main street for dinner in the early evening on the Thursday after Easter produced no encounters. None. I would not have been surprised to stumble over one of those Mars probe machines that NASA uses to look for life on a far away planet. Ninety eight percent of the town’s hotels were closed for the spring season. Curious thing is though ninety eight percent of the restaurants and almost all of the shops were open (the latter in the daytime of course). There are only so many locals, around three thousand if I’m not wrong, so I wondered during my 3-day stay to whom were they selling. To top of the whole, somewhat bizarre situation, the ski lifts were still running and the snow was spectacular. Day-trippers came through the Mont Blanc tunnel from France and many smart folks enjoyed the surroundings, the lower than high season prices and the relative solitude. So what’s up here then? Why do three people sit in one of Courmayeur’s best restaurants on a Friday night and not see another living soul save the owners and staff? Why are the hotels closed while the ski lifts remain open and the spring skiing conditions remain fantastic? Surely there’s a business opportunity there somewhere. Is this the business plan from hell? A recipe for disaster? Take one beautiful town, place it in a picture perfect setting under Mont Blanc, give it beautiful spring weather and sparkling new spring snow and then…close down the hotels. Yeah that’ll do it. No wonder everyone’s in Zermatt. Yes I agree the hoteliers deserve a break after a long season. But one more week, surely they could use the money? Err, couldn’t they? But what if they knew something I didn’t? What if they knew beforehand that the place would be the original lost city? Then there would be no point in staying open, right? In the sense of the classical political debate, what did they know and when did they know it? Well they knew that the tour operators that fill a great percentage of the hotels during the winter usually wind up their season with the Easter week. They also knew that they don’t invest in advertising to any meaningful degree and they knew that their hotel and tourism associations are in a state of flux and chaos and couldn’t possibly mount any kind of a concentrated campaign even if they had the money. Hell fells, batten down the hatches. Its almost as if the whole thing was planned. The tourism association run by Dottore Benedetto Mascardi for more than 20 years and ably assisted by Francesca, Barbara and Elizabetha is a thing of the past. In my opinion their departure was hastened by nothing short of starvation of funds and political sabotage. The new group is friendly and I am sure, capable, but they will need time to forge relationships and contacts in the savagely competitive world of international tourism. Dottore Mascardi stayed on a while as sort of a consultant after his “retirement date” to try to smooth out the transition, which I think is a credit to his professionalism and caring. Nonetheless the new team will have to be very sharp and very fast to close the gap. What a waste of natural beauty and man’s business acumen. Things will not pick up again until late June and not really get into full swing until August when the Italian community kicks back and takes its annual holiday period. Then the streets will be once again paved with gold. For a few weeks anyway. In the meantime Courmayeur will stumble along in a halfhearted sort of way. More hotels will open. Restaurants will tick over and shops will sell some souvenirs. Can you imagine this? There really is everything to do here. When the snow melts Courmayeur has a memorable nine-hole golf course that has the beauty of Mont Blanc as a backdrop and a gurgling river as a sidekick. There’s lots of walking, climbing, swimming, canyoning, shopping, dining, the lot. The Aosta Valley, in which Courmayeur is situated, is one of Europe’s most beautiful and historic, and the town’s proximity to France and Switzerland make it an ideal headquarters for a summer alpine holiday. A business opportunity indeed, but why isn’t someone marketing it? Do the professionals that sell Courmayeur in winter know something that I don’t? This is a great place for a family holiday or an adventure break. In summer there are no minimum stay periods and cheap flights make Geneva, Milan and Turin airports easy and fast to reach from just about anywhere. What a setting for a company meeting or a sales incentive. As well, spring and early summer savings should just make the resort more attractive. Perhaps I can help and save you some money and make some for the villagers and of course, yours truly. Drop me a line. My email is actone@activelifestyle.com. About Activelifestyle | About Ski Italy | About Courmayeur.com | Contact |
