Wintersport-Arena Sauerland: Positive Christmas Holiday Balance Sheet

The ski areas in the Sauerland Winter Sports Arena have successfully completed the Christmas holidays as the first main season. A good range of winter sports was available, particularly on the last weekend of the NRW holidays. While the ski areas themselves were able to ensure regular procedures, it was a challenge due to the large number of onlookers in the surrounding areas.

Experience over the last few decades has shown that there is always a great demand for winter sports and active activities during the Christmas holidays. In recent weeks, this initially met with a comparatively small supply, which the three or four open ski areas were able to cope with well thanks to structured and regulated processes. The turn of the year brought the necessary cold for snow production and the first weekend of the year saw a good 15 centimeters of fresh snow. This increased the winter sports offering to over 40 ski and toboggan lifts in a total of nine areas from Willingen to Winterberg to Schmallenberg and Olpe-Fahlenscheid. In this situation, the ski areas have succeeded in providing many families with wonderful snow experiences and securing the important economic basis for the region's tourist companies.

Good to very good snow conditions

On the snow-covered slopes, a mixture of artificially produced snow and fresh snow generally provided very good winter sports conditions. There is still up to 40 centimetres of snow there. Only a few very high natural snow slopes were open.

When the weather reports snowfall, the attraction for day trippers is particularly great. The first weekend in January saw a correspondingly high number of visitors, especially walkers and tobogganers. Thanks to a concentrated presentation of the options and intensive communication, it was possible to direct demand to the area. This has shown once again that, given the high demand that arises at certain points, the region needs all ski areas - the large, medium and small!

Increasing number of adventure seekers creates challenges

Nevertheless, there were traffic jams on the way there and in the core area the parking spaces were often full early in the morning. Lift operators and tourism officials are observing a rapidly growing number of snow trippers who do not ski themselves but want to experience snow and winter sports. While winter sports enthusiasts usually head for the parking spaces at the entry points to the lift network in the morning and then stay there, more and more people are driving around the area in search of the most beautiful visual impressions, especially in the core area, thereby increasing traffic pressure.

Regulated procedure for winter sports guests

In the ski areas themselves, the processes that have been tried and tested over many years are running successfully. However, those hungry for adventure behave very differently than winter sports enthusiasts. Together with tourist information offices and regulatory authorities, the ski areas try to direct and channel demand in advance through communication. However, since these are usually not the Sauerland tourist target groups defined in marketing, such as athletes, hikers, those seeking relaxation and nature lovers, there are limits to this. Many of these visitors are hardly reachable through the company's own media channels and the public media.

Acceptance of rules decreases among some guest groups

Rules that exist and are necessary to ensure a safe and satisfactory process for everyone involved are mostly known, learned and accepted by winter sports enthusiasts, hikers and nature lovers. However, the public order office and employees of the ski resorts are observing a growing number of people who are not prepared to accept rules, even when they are explained to them. The controlling elements here are usually social media, which provide the "initial spark" and the desire to present oneself with the most beautiful snow pictures.

Demand for district-wide support and harsher penalties

"The road network in Winterberg is not designed for such a sporadically increasing influx of visitors and for such visitor behavior, and it is far from sufficient if the control only begins in Winterberg," emphasizes Winfried Borgmann, Managing Director of the Winterberg Touristik und Wirtschaft Gesellschaft. The employees of the public order office are on duty and handing out parking tickets. "Our loyal guests and also the new ones who abide by the rules are very welcome."