Time to sell ski

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Middle East travel agents are increasingly looking to offer alternative experiences to customers seeking winter holidays.

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Top-end clients can travel from Lyon to Courchevel in style with a helicopter taxi or private jet charter.

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Agents should be selling Courchevel’s four S’s - snow, scenery, shopping and skiing.

As agents gear up to sell ski packages in 2009 ATN joined a Maison de la France fam trip to Courchevel in the French Alps to find out what the luxury ski resort has to offer.

Courchevel in the French Alps ticks all the right boxes for the top-end Middle East traveller - skiing, spas and shopping, not to mention luxury accommodation, exquisite cuisine and kids activities galore.

To prove the point, French tourism agency Maison de la France recently led a fam trip for Middle East agents to show that France offered much more beyond Paris.

"As far as France is concerned people in the Middle East only know Paris and the Riviera."

"Our aim, being based in Dubai, is for the Middle East travel agents to discover the whole of France," explains Chahine Mikdam, PR and marketing manager for French tourist organisation Maison de la France, and trip leader.

Mikdan believes that people living in the GCC countries are seeking something different from the arid flatness of the desert and are aching to discover skiing and the snow-capped peaks of the French Alps.

"I think skiing will become more popular as people have been introduced to the concept at Ski Dubai and soon there will be a ski dome at Marina Mall in Abu Dhabi," he says.

"Now people are skiing in these artificial domes - and I've seen nationals as well as ex-pats there - I'm sure most of them would like to ski in a natural environment."

Mikdam concedes that "it's not easy to promote the region simply for skiing", but notes that "the family of the King of Saudi Arabia, the Sheikh of Qatar and other prominent figures from the Gulf and GCC countries" visit Courchevel.

"They are not coming just for skiing, but to enjoy the atmosphere, nature and the mountains."

"Families will enjoy it here aa well, as there are lots of things to do," he says.

Maison de la France has been working closely with Courchevel Tourism to promote ski to the Middle East market, holding workshops for the travel trade in November 2007 and inviting12 agents to attend the Grande Ski exhibition in Savoi prior to the Courchevel fam trip.

Courchevel Tourism director Denis Zanon admits that Middle East visitors numbers to Courchevel are currently on the low side, but he is looking to change that with the help of the travel trade.

"We are starting to promote Courchevel on a wider scale than we did before."

"It has proven quite popular among some very high-end clients - the royal family of Saudi Arabia for example," he says.

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