Amid top conditions, Italy’s ski businesses beset by pandemic
CORTINA, Italy — The granite peaks that majestically encircle the northern Italian town of Cortina d’Ampezzo glimmer with one of the most prolific snowfalls in years — a cruel joke of nature while the COVID-19 pandemic silences Italy’s winter resorts.
Cortina will flash across TV sports channels for two weeks this month as the past and future Olympic host city holds the 2021 World Ski Championships, sending downhill skiers flying down precipitous slopes.
But the event will occupy just a fraction of the available hotel rooms, and it is unlikely to bring much business to the town’s luxury boutiques. No spectators are allowed.
The spasm of activity looks to be a mere flicker in a ski season that seems destined to never take off, as the Italian government delays reopening lifts to leisure skiers. The world championships will provide good optics in view of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, but scant economic relief for local businesses and workers who live off the winter sports economy, which has been shut down for almost a year.
“Absurdly, we made snow in November, because we couldn’t know there would be so much and the slopes had to be prepared,” said Marco Zardini, the chief executive of Cortina Skiworld, which normally operates 35 ski lifts across four areas but only has four lifts going now for use by local clubs and aspiring world-class athletes who must keep in shape for future seasons.
Italy’s 2019-2020 ski season closed unexpectedly early last March, when the country was pummeled by the pandemic. A new season has yet to launch, unlike in neighboring Switzerland, which in December allowed lifts to open with restrictions, or in Austria, where residents still can ski. France’s ski lifts remain closed at least through February.
In Italy, the pandemic-related closures are a hit to an industry that generates $1.5 billion in annual revenues and employs 5,000 permanent and 10,000 seasonal workers, according to the association of ski lift operators, ANEF.
The association said last year’s early end to the season led to a 20% revenue decline and called the current season a total loss. Factoring in hotels, restaurants and other services, the ski industry generates $13.2 billion in annual revenues, but travel restrictions have kept activity near zero on top of the stilled lifts.
“Mountains, you cannot leave abandoned to themselves. They need to be taken care of,” ANEF President Valeria Ghezzi said.
While ski resorts generate cash over four months of the year, maintenance and upkeep are year-round costs — something ski resort operators say the government in Rome has been slow to understand.
The paradox is that 2020-21 would have been a season for the record books in Cortina, and elsewhere across Italy’s Alps, where snow has been in abundance, Zardini said.