Innovations in French Resorts for 2019/20

21.10
2019 News and events

Digital ski passes, every component of your whole holiday available to book online, handy apps…our resorts are outdoing each other with ingenious and great ideas to improve your holiday in the mountains. We give you all the latest hi-tech arrivals this winter - all available in just a few clicks!

Hands up on the slopes

Val Cenis is ringing the changes with its ski pass prices this winter. The ‘1 Day – 1 Price! Book! Save!’ offer gives you ski passes at attractive prices when you buy them early. Some ski passes will also be available at up to 70% less.

In Alpe du Grand-Serre, the ski area now has digital ski passes. Sales and controls have gone digital, making for a free and easy time on the slopes. There will be screens at every access point providing real-time resort information (events and activities etc) and even personal messages relating to the ski pass.

In Serre-Chevalier, the ‘&joy’ custom digital ski pass will be available this winter. This gives priority access to the ski lifts with an app and special terminals throughout the ski area.

Green Energy

In Val Thorens, Berto the autonomous electric shuttle was launched at the resort in early March. Its job: taking holidaymakers and locals around the resort but without a driver and with total respect for the environment! It’s a true technical challenge and the first one in the world to be used in a ski resort.

The Bourg Saint Maurice/Les Arcs funicular will have the latest technology and operate on environmentally friendly clean energy (100% electric). Its elegant design will also blend perfectly with its surroundings.

In Serre-Chevalier, the Renewable Energy project continues in the ski area. Energy production from solar panels, wind turbines and hydro-electricity will provide 30% of the resort’s energy by 2021.

And in Risoul, there’s a project in planning to build a photovoltaic farm at the top of the ski area.

Digital and handy

Connected, committed to a policy of sustainable development and offering innovative services, resorts are becoming proper ‘smart cities’, using every kind of digital technology to improve customer experience. On the slopes, in the resort, bookings management and reception and transport services: it’s all about providing a hassle-free holiday in the mountains.

Val d’Isère has created ‘Val Digital’, an e-resort/connected village project. The resort has gone fully digital, with a mobile app, digital information terminals, real-time bus timetables, ski pass sales via smart phone, free WiFi and built in technology for the ski lifts. There’s also talk of Smart Resorts in Valberg, Chamrousse and Les Orres.

La Plagne is launching its own online travel agency this winter, where you can book every component of your holiday on the same website, including transport: easy!

Ski passes are turning into proper multi-activity cards in Valloire and Villard de Lans. In Vercors, you only need one card for ski, toboggan and cross-country skiing activities and getting into the ice rink and toboggan park.

Pretty clever and really useful: in St-Martin de Belleville you can book your ski locker when you buy your ski pass.

The tourist offices also have new technology for sending out information. It’s all change in St Lary, with thirty or so screens, tablets, interactive screens and an image wall.

Be ‘appy!

In the Sancy Massif, the GPS Sancy Explorer app guides you around the snowshoe trails, city tours and hiking routes accessible in winter, also providing information about places in the area.

Hosting the Combined Nordic World Cup every year, the Jura mountain ski jumps in Chaux-Neuve offer an immersive tour via a mobile app and a simulator.

A little bit different

Unique and in a class of its own, Saint-Sorlin d’Arves boasts a 24-hour Beaufort cheese vending machine. Now you can satisfy your cheese cravings whenever you want!

Crédit photos : Clo&Clem / Urope / Skipass