Natural snowfall is in decline, yet the world’s leading mountain destinations continue to attract record numbers. We examine how international travel, resort investment, snow management and the rise of year-round tourism are impacting ski markets.
Natural snow is becoming less predictable, yet skier demand is at its strongest since records began.
Global ski tourism hasn’t only recovered from the pandemic but has also surpassed pre-Covid levels in many markets. France recorded 54.8m skier visits in 2024/25, Austria is up 4%, Italy climbed 3%, and Switzerland is up 14% – its strongest performance in 15 years, according to Laurent Vanat's 2026 International Report on Snow & Mountain Tourism.
The rebound extends beyond the Alps. Japan’s skier visits rose 16% year-on-year, China went up 13%, and Canada rose 11%. The US remained the world’s largest ski market, Vanat's report shows. These figures raise the central question: if snowfall is declining, why are skier visits reaching record levels?
As snowfall declines in mountain resorts worldwide, demand is increasingly focused on destinations able to offer the greatest reliability.
Snowmaking remains one of the industry’s most important tools, but it’s only part of the story.
Resorts have also invested heavily in water storage, lift infrastructure, weather monitoring and slope management, allowing operators to concentrate activity on the most reliable parts of the mountain and maintain key links between sectors.
Snow farming also allows resorts to bank snow from one winter to the next. Snow is gathered into large mounds at the end of the season, covered with specialised insulation and stored through the summer months before being redistributed in autumn. This equips resorts for early openings before natural snowfall arrives.
According to Alex Koch de Gooreynd, Partner at Knight Frank’s Alpine Desk, the strength of recent ski seasons also reflects structural policy changes that have increased the availability of accommodation.
“Visitor numbers have remained strong because Alpine destinations have become much better at keeping beds warm,” he says. “Rather than homes sitting empty... rental requirements and incentives have expanded the accommodation available to visitors. The result is that the same housing stock can support far more skier visits across a season.”
In Switzerland, the Lex Weber legislation restricted second-home construction in many resort municipalities. Over time, the constraints on new supply have increased focus on maximising the use of existing housing stock.
France has followed a different route. The incentive of its long-established VAT recovery scheme has helped create a large pool of accommodation available to visitors when owners aren’t in residence.
Together, these measures have had a cumulative effect. They’ve gradually increased capacity, enabling better-used rental housing stock to accommodate more visitors across the season.
Visitor numbers are concentrated in the largest and most resilient destinations.
Scale matters because major resorts are often better placed to invest in snowmaking, lift networks, reservoir capacity, slope monitoring and year-round amenities.
But concentration brings its own challenges. Greater demand in a smaller pool of reliable destinations can place pressure on lifts, pistes, roads and the visitor experience during peak periods.
Prime values across many of the Alps’ best-known destinations have continued to rise despite growing scrutiny of snowfall trends.
Knight Frank data points to greater pressure at lower altitudes, with average annual prime price growth across resorts with a base village height below 1,200m slowing to -1% in the latest year. Yet village altitude alone doesn’t determine performance.
As Koch de Gooreynd explains, “Ten years ago, altitude and snow reliability would have been at the top of most buyers’ wish lists. They still matter, but the resorts performing best today tend to combine reliable skiing with a broader lifestyle offer. Buyers increasingly want somewhere they can enjoy throughout the year.”
That said, snow certainty remains a powerful draw. “For some buyers, snow certainty will always be the number one priority,” says Roddy Aris, Partner at Knight Frank’s Alpine Desk. “Val Thorens has benefited from that because its altitude gives people confidence in its long-term appeal.”
The growth of summer flights, hotel stays and mountain railway use is expanding the role of the world’s leading resorts, broadening their visitor base and strengthening their year-round credentials.
Knight Frank analysis of Official Airline Guide (OAG) international commercial flight schedules compares winter (December to April) with summer (May to September) at gateway airports serving major Alpine destinations. The results point to the growing importance of year-round access.
Accommodation data underlines the economic weight of the warmer months.
Switzerland recorded 25.2m hotel nights between May and October 2025, compared with 18.6m in winter 2024/25 – both record figures demonstrating the scale of the summer tourism economy in Europe’s principal mountain markets.
Mountain-specific indicators point in the same direction. First-time admissions to Switzerland’s mountain railways were 29% above the previous five-year average during summer 2026.
Aspen tells a similar story. Summer arrivals increased by 20% between 2019 and 2025, slightly outpacing winter growth, according to Knight Frank’s analysis of Aspen/Pitkin Country Airport passenger data.
As Knight Frank’s International Residential Research Lead, Anna Ward analyses prime residential markets, global wealth flows and cross-border investment. Previously, she was News Editor at UK real estate magazine EG.
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