Saas-Fee Nostalgic Gourmet Mile

The glacier village Saas-Fee is staging the Nostalgic Culinary Mile for the fourth time on 13 September 2009. From noon until 6 p.m. the main street in Saas-Fee will be transformed with the appearance of one long, inviting dining table where guests can celebrate and feast in style. You will have the pleasure of tasting numerous traditional culinary specialities from the Valais region, many of which have been virtually forgotten over the years. These delights will be on offer together with some good Valais wine at the many stands along the main street. 

The restaurateurs and hoteliers will be serving in the costumes and in the spirit of the good old days. You are surrounded by "smugglers", "mountaineers of the old school", "English noblemen from the 19th century", "genteel ladies" or "farmers' wives in the typical dress of the Valais region". And even the pioneer of tourism, the priest Johann Josef Imseng, will be commemorated as some people dress up in the clothes of 19th century priests. One of the many highlights of the day is definitely the prize-giving ceremony for the most original nostalgic costume. Throughout the day, a jury specially selected for this task will be looking for the most beautiful and unusual outfit.

The event which was planned to be a one-off affair to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Saas-Fee hotel business in 2006 has now become a permanent fixture on the village's calendar of events. The very first of these events three years ago was so successful for the organisers from the Saas-Fee Hoteliers' Association and enjoyed such positive feedback that it was decided without further ado to hold it on an annual basis. The Gourmet Mile has developed into a real crowd puller appealing to people of all ages, and the decision to stage this special event every year has definitely proved to be the right one.

This year the Nostalgic Gourmet Mile will be raising money for the "Tanja" Foundation in the village of Bitsch, which supports severely mentally and physically handicapped adults.

SuperStern – The new BLISS show

by Raúl Revuelta

The Swiss a cappella band BLISS will return to Saas-Fee next February 6, 2009 to present their new "SuperStern" show in the glacier village.

This appealing group got to know Saas-Fee last November when they wanted to implement an apparently completely crazy idea. They had an unbelievable goal: they decided to do a 1:1 remake of the world-famous classic "Last Christmas" video by Wham (1984) in the original venues in and around Saas-Fee. No sooner said than done: the group travelled to the glacier village with 80s-style wigs and blouses with padded shoulders in their bags. And the impossible happened: a sensationally entertaining remake of the classic video was produced, perfectly staged and implemented. Even the weather was perfect for the band, providing precisely the right atmosphere for the shooting with snow, fog and a wintry white landscape. The video was broadcast during the Christmas season on the well-known music channels and the a cappella version of "Last Christmas" was admired on various radio programmes.

Christmas is over and BLISS is now turning up the heat with their new show entitled "SuperStern". Because the band liked Saas-Fee so much, they decided to return in spring and perform their new "SuperStern" show in the glacier village. Thus, guests can look forward to an entertaining musical evening and exciting show on February 6, 2009 at 9:00 p.m. at the gym in Saas-Fee, located directly on the village square. Admission is free!

The first Snowmaker successfully operated at Zermatt last week

By Raúl Revuelta

Zermatt Bergbahnen was the first ski resort to order a new kind of artificial snow system: the IDE’s All Weather Snowmaker. Later Pitztal Gletscherbahnen was the second Company to order, following Zermatt’s footsteps, the snowmaker. IDE Technologies is a world leader and pioneer in water desalination, wastewater concentrators and purifiers. The snowmaking technology comes from the mining industry where it is used to cool the goldmines. Both ski resorts have launched a new era in snowmaking by choosing the IDE All Weather Snowmaker from Israel to deliver large amounts of snow at all ambient temperatures.

The first Snowmaker was assembled and testing in Israel during July 2008. The Snowmakers were shipped from Israel to Slovenia, loaded on a truck convoy and transported to the base stations of the ski resorts. The crews worked hard to transport the heavy equipment up to the mountains. The first unit was lifted to the installation site in Zermatt by cables. The installation was completed in mid November and the Snowmaker was successfully operated last week.

Since the installation site has already been covered by heavy snow for the last few weeks, Zermatt ski resort will commence snowmaking with the new Snowmaker during spring 2009.
The installation of the snowmaker in Pitztal will be completed next month. 

IDE’s All Weather Snowmaker for Zermatt tested

By Raúl Revuelta

The new snow machine will be put into operation next month to offset the bad snow conditions of the late autumn in the glacier piste. The snow is being used to make a path between the bottom of its high altitude glacier and the cable car station from where skiers and boarders can get back up the slopes to access the year round ski area. In years gone by the glacier did reach this lift station anyway, but over the past two decades it has melted away and in late autumn, around the beginning of October, the glacier piste ends 500m before the lift station.

Zermatt Bergbahnen was the first ski resort to order a new kind of artificial snow system: the IDE’s All Weather Snowmaker. Later Pitztal Gletscherbahnen was the second Company to order, following Zermatt’s footsteps, the snowmaker. IDE Technologies is a world leader and pioneer in water desalination, wastewater concentrators and purifiers. The snowmaking technology comes from the mining industry where it is used to cool the goldmines.

CEO Zermatt Bergbahnen Christen Baumann explains how it works: "To put it simply it works like a freezer. The temperature of the surrounding air is irrelevant. In a closed container with a diameter of 3.2m and a height of 10m, water is exposed to a vacuum without any additives. A small portion vaporizes, the remaining water freezes to snow, which is afterwards expelled at a rate of about 40 cubic metres every hour. The snow produced has the consistency of a wet spring snow". IDE’s All Weather Snowmaker is a unique, environmentally-friendly and energy-efficient solution. The energy it requires for a year is the equivalent to that of one household.

The new snow machine, which is produced in Israel, had a delivery period of one year and costs around CHF 2 million (EUR 1.19 million).

Size is important in the Ski Industry

By Raúl Revuelta

I wrote in a recent article about Zermatt how ski resorts have been forced to invest and innovate to remain competitive. Today, I want to focus our attention in all Switzerland. We can found 650 mountain transport and ski lift companies in all the country. They provide access to 12,000 kilometres of ski slopes. With 11,000 employees, the companies are a key economic factor in mountain regions. All together they have a combined annual turnover of approximately SFr840 million.

But most of the Swiss resorts can not compete in the current circunstances. Most of them are small and located in peripheral regions, they have low cash flow, an inability to attract investment capital, and are crippled by high labour costs, services and food. According to professor Thomas Bieger, head of the Institute for Public Services and Tourism at St Gallen University: "The Swiss ski industry is split into two camps: bigger companies (who managed large international resorts) that are innovative and can keep pace with global developments, and too many operators in small ski areas who don't have the means to invest". Bieger told swissinfo that consolidation is one of the answers to the problem. "Only then do you have enough money to make investments". He believes only around 20 of today's 164 medium-to-large ski resorts in Switzerland can be competitive internationally. And the large investments being made by these top 20 are reflected in the price because"If you target the wealthy, you will have stable and higher revenues in the long-run".

Zermatt is one of the Swiss leading resorts with enough capacity to invest to remain competitive, and can afford to focus its attentions on wealthy holidaymakers. But in an increasingly global industry, ski resorts need to look to the international market to found their clients. In Zermatt Swiss market still account for about one-third of all nights spent in local hotels or apartments, but tourist director Daniel Luggen says the number of Swiss visitors has decreased over the past five years and "one of the reasons is that Zermatt has increased capacity (to meet foreign demand)".

Medium-sized ski areas have important reasons to be worried about their future. First of all they do not have the capacity to draw holidaymakers from international markets. Secondly, they have not the capacity to invest in new facilities. For example a recent study found that one in three Swiss ski lift companies could not afford to upgrade its snowmaking infrastructure – considered a vital survival strategy nowadays. They need outside investors to deal with this, but investors are only interested in "integrated" models where the infrastructure – from the lifts and sport shops to the hotels and restaurants – are under single management. But there is no one company running everything in the typical Swiss resort. "Investors need to be able to make money from income streams that aren't completely snow-related", Rusty Gregory, CEO of California's Mammoth Mountain ski area explained in swissinfo: "It's very important to consolidate these income streams before [they] can bring capital in to improve the lifts and other aspects of the resort". These resorts"are only active in small markets and so it will be much more difficult for them to attract capital or foreign investors" Luggen said. "I'm convinced that some of these resorts will have to close in future".

Zermatt: A leading resort in the Alps

By Raúl Revuelta

Zermatt (Valais, Switzerland) can be included in the selected group of the international destination resorts that attract skiers from all over the world. Zermatt is a car-free resort and mountain village at the foot of the Matterhorn, surrounded by an incredible landscape of mountains and glaciers.

Zermatt Bergbahnen, the largest aerial cableway company in Switzerland, understands nowadays the challenges for the ski resorts are gaining competitive advantage by being environmentally friendly and offering a quality service. On completion of a multistage auditing process carried out over a period of around one and a half years, the staff of Zermatt Bergbahnen have been granted on September 25, 2005, ISO-9001 Quality management certification and ISO-14001 Environment management certification for all enterprise areas of activity.

Also, ski resorts have been forced to invest and innovate to remain competitive; new ski lifts, snow making machines, cultural, sports and entertainment facilities and refurbished buildings are some of the necessary measures employed to render resorts more attractive. Since 2002, Zermatt Bergbahnen AG has invested CHF 105 million in transport equipment, CHF 39 million in pistes and artificial snow equipment, and CHF 34 million in property and vehicles.

On September 2007 Zermatt Bergbahnen AG reported figures substantially ahead of those reported five years ago at the time of the merger. The relatively warm winter seen again in 2006/07, with scant natural snowfall, proved the CHF 40 million in capital expenditures for artificial snow equipment to be a wise investment. An armada of over 700 lances and snow machines made it possible to open over 100 km of top-quality slopes in early December. The Matterhorn ski paradise posted record attendance for the period between Christmas and New Year's, with an additional 2,000 to 5,000 guests per day and 15,045 daily passes sold on the peak day of New Year's Eve 2006.

Matterhorn ski paradise daily pass sales for the last winter were up by 42,940 year-on-year (3.2%) to 1,368,920, and seasonal pass sales by 733,470 (7.3%) to 10,671,230. For the full-year, sales totalled 1.8 million daily passes and 12,956,230 seasonal passes. With over 2 million skiing days, the Matterhorn ski paradise is one of the largest contiguous ski areas in the world.

Saas-Fee, the Pearl of the Alps, a sustainable resort

by Raúl Revuelta

Saas-Fee is the main village in the Saastal, one of the most scenically beautiful and diverse valleys in the Valais and in the Alps. This car-free village lies on a high plateau 1800 metres above sea level, nestling amongst the icy dome of the Allalinhorn and the rocky group of the Mischabel chain. Their typical old Valais wooden houses create the perfect setting for winter holidays, deserving of its name “Pearl of the Alps”. Saas-Fee has some of the most restrictive building and zoning regulations in Switzerland. All buildings must have a gabled roof and at least one third of the facade of the building must be built of wood. The typical Valais style of Chalet can be maintained with these measures.

The foundation for creating a resort conscious of the environment and of quality was laid in 1951, when the community made the decision to keep the village car-free. The absence of cars in Saas-Fee contributes considerably to the relaxed holiday atmosphere and romantic character of the village where there is no stress from traffic. Guests benefit from the peace and quiet, the good quality of the air and the freedom of movement in the streets. 10 years ago, car-free resorts in Switzerland which care about a high quality of service and the environment joined forces to form the Society of Car-free Swiss Resorts. The Society (GAST in short) is a network of several car-free Swiss touristy communities (Bettmeralp, Braunwald, Riederalp, Rigi, Saas-Fee, Stoos, Wengen-Mürren and Zermatt) that promotes car-free recreation and holiday experiences in alpine resorts. The resorts commit themselves to nine decided quality criteria, which are checked regularly.

Saas-Fee committed itself to the Alliance in the Alps project as a pilot community in 1996. The Alliance in the Alps community network initiated in collaboration with CIPRA (Commission Internationale pour la Protection des Alpes) is an association comprising over 250 communities located throughout the Alpine region, from France to Slovenia. The member communities have come together in support of the goals of the Alpine Convention for sustainable development in the Alps. To this end they work in close contact with the resident populations to improve the ecological, social and economic situation in their communities.

Saas-Fee was awarded the status of Energy Town in June 2002. The label represents the introduction of actual quality control concerning communal energy policies and is awarded to towns and communities which -in proportion to the possibilities at their disposal- go to exceptional lengths to implement energy and traffic policies in their community.

Saas-Fee was the first resort in Switzerland to introduce fees for refuse bags in 1994. By means of this fee, residents are called upon to sort refuse exactly and to produce less refuse in general. Household refuse may only be disposed of in the official bags which carry a fee.