The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Poor snow hits ski centre jobs
sports: Millions lost to economy as warm weather leads to ‘dire’ season
Scotland’s ski centres have suffered one of their worst ever seasons, with operators warning that “millions of pounds” have been lost to the economy from a lack of snow.
Hundreds of seasonal jobs have also fallen victim to the warm winter.
Glenshee in Aberdeenshire has been open for just 15 days this season – compared to 60 at the same point last year, and 69 in the winter of 2014/15.
Director Stewart Davidson, who has been at Glenshee for 28 years, said that this season was among the worst the Scottish snow sports industry has experienced.
“We haven’t had to lay off any permanent staff, but we have not taken on 60-80 seasonal staff. This season has been a non-event – it’s so frustrating, but what can you do? We are in the hands of the weather.
“It really never got started and when you get into April people are doing other things even if you have snow,” said Mr Davidson.
“Overall millions have been lost to the rural economy this year.”
Today there were just 28 runs open – or due to open – out of 165 collectively available at Scotland’s five snow sports centres.
At Glencoe spokesperson Mariann Chisholm said it had only been open for skiing and boarding on 23 days so far, less than a third compared to previous years.
“It has been dire,” she said. “We have been open 61 years and this year must be up there with the worst. We have not taken on staff and everywhere, local businesses etc, is decimated by it.”
At the Lecht in Aberdeenshire a spokeswoman said it was a similar story.
“It’s up there as among the worst and I don’t think there’s much snow coming,” she said.
“We have not had to lay anybody off, but we’ve not taken any winter staff on.”
The operator of CairnGorm Mountain, near Aviemore, has started consulting staff on potential job losses.
Janette Jansson, of Natural Retreat’s CairnGorm Mountain Ltd, said a consultation process was ongoing and managers were still speaking to individuals to explore alternative options, such as opportunities for temporary redeployment elsewhere within the Natural Retreats portfolio.