Why We Don't Offer the Alps (France, Austria, Italy or Switzerland)
Every winter, 90% of UK skiers choose to ski in the Alps - France, Austria, Italy or Switzerland - yet here at Ski Safari we don't offer any of those destinations. Here's why!
Why we don't offer the Alps
The Alps are incredible - vast, beautiful and with more runs and resorts than anywhere else in the world. We’re certainly not anti-Alps; many of us have skied there before and still do, and once upon a time we even sold holidays to Switzerland.
But Ski Safari was never built around the traditional Alps ski holiday: skiing a single resort for a week. We encourage ski holidays that are a little different. That might mean linking together multiple resorts on a ski safari, combining skiing with a city stay, or heading to a lesser-visited destination for a more authentic experience.
Richard and Sam Rice first started Ski Safari in 1996 by selling ski holidays to Canada, and we've grown from there based on what we know and what we love.
We love destinations that offer something different: more powder, easy access to off-piste skiing, fewer people on the slopes, exciting non-ski activities, great food and experiences beyond the skiing itself. Our destinations, Norway, Sweden, Japan, Canada, and the USA, are particularly well suited to this kind of ski holiday.
This is also the foundation for our completely tailor-made approach. It means flexible holidays built around you - flying from the most appropriate airport, whenever you want, with advice from our experts to ensure you enjoy the ski holiday you're looking for - rather than fitting your holiday around a fixed package.
Our tailor-made service is built on a deep personal knowledge and first-hand experience of the destinations we work with. We've skied at every single resort we sell, and stayed in or visited every accommodation.
How we maintain our knowledge and service
Our team is made up of ski experts who have lived, worked or regularly skied in our destinations.
For example, in Scandinavia, our entire company has skied there - many of us at every resort we offer. Norway & Sweden Product Manager Andy Hemingway brought over a decade of Scandinavian expertise with him when he joined Ski Safari in 2012, having worked with both destinations since 2001. Add Carina, who is born and bred Norwegian, and between us we know the resorts - and the people who run them - inside and out.
In North America, almost all of our team have skied there, and our Canada & USA Product Manager Rupert and former Whistler resident Andy Knights have local-level knowledge. Together, they have many hundreds of North American ski days across all of our resorts, having lived and worked there with countless visits since.
In Japan, our experts Andy Evans and Abbie lived and worked in its ski resorts, and our Japan Product Manager Andy Knights has visited all of our resorts. We were one of the first tour operators to offer Japan to the UK market back in 2008, and since then we've expanded our programme to offer the most comprehensive range of resorts and Japan ski safaris - trips we know inside out.
We work hard to maintain an in-depth understanding of how resorts, transfers, passes, ski school and accommodation work, and what to expect from the food and culture, which we believe must come from first-hand experience. To do this, we top up our knowledge every winter with research trips across our destinations to supplement our existing experience.
Why this matters to you
This depth of experience also means we have close working relationships with the resorts themselves. We've been working with the same people for 30 years, and are fortunate enough to call many of them friends. This allows us to offer competitive rates, iron out any issues seamlessly, and ensure a genuinely tailor-made booking experience.
We're proud that our customers can call us about a resort or country, and we can respond with actual experience of skiing there. We're always as honest as we can be - if we think a resort doesn't sound like it will suit your requirements, we'll recommend one that does.
Our philosophy
Our mission hasn't changed for 30 years: we listen to you to find out what you want, make suggestions based on our knowledge, put it together at the best possible price, and once you've booked, take care of all the little details before you travel. We've always aimed to provide every customer with their perfect tailor-made ski holiday.
There's a reason you can't book our holidays online, and we always encourage chatting to us on the phone. It's our award-winning tailor-made service, utilising our first-hand knowledge, that sets us apart. Visit our About Us page or What Happens When I Book with Ski Safari? page for more.
We'd love to chat to you to see if any of our resorts in North America, Scandinavia or Japan would be a good alternative to the Alps for you. Each offers a truly special skiing experience. Call us on 01273 224060 or enquire online to find out more.