The French town of Seyne-Les-Alpes is closing down its ski resort. The lack of snow and the cost of the exploitation of the resort have made it too difficult to stay open.
Grand Puy, the ski station of Seyne-Les-Alpes in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department, has 24 kilometres of ski slopes. Located at an altitude of 1.370 to 1.800 metres, the resort has been confronted with a consistent lack of snow over the past few years. The turnover decreased by 60% over the last decade, while the village had to invest 350,000€ a year to keep the resort up and running.
To determine whether the investment was still worth the outcome, Seyne-les-Alpes organised a referendum. 57.93% of the village’s 1,305 inhabitants showed up to vote, with 71.31% of them voting in favour of closing the ski resort. Thus, starting on November 1st, the ski lifts will be permanently closed.
While the ski resort might be closing, Seyne-les-Alpes’ mayor, Laurent Pascal, is looking at alternatives in order to maintain its attractiveness as a tourist destination. As most of the ski resort’s visitors were locals, he wants to promote more sustainable activities in the future to ensure they will return. The options of constructing a trail stadium and creating a fishing pond are currently being examined.
Seyne-les-Alpes isn’t the first French ski resort to be closing. According to the French newspaper Le Monde, approximately 180 ski domains have closed down since the 1970s. Many of them were small resorts located at medium altitudes.
According to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, around half of Europe’s ski resorts are threatened by climate change. Many resorts already have to close down regularly during the skiing season due to a lack of snow, while bad snow quality makes the experience more dangerous. The rising energy costs are also hard to endure for many ski resorts, especially the smaller-scale ones.
