INDIAN SKIERS BEGIN TO PACK PISTES ACROSS WORLD

For decades, Indians have been headed to exotic locations for skiing. However, for long, they constituted a very small, invisible fraction of total visitors as skiing was and remains an expensive sport. But last few years have seen a visible boom in number of Indian travellers heading specifically for a ski vacation and destinations as well as ski resort operators have begun to take note and are specifically targetting the Indian market with customised packages.

- Ranvir Nayar & Varsha Singh

From James Bond to Johnny English, adventures in the mountains have made frequent appearances in films for decades, so much so that a battle on skiis has almost become a routine fixture in a James Bond movie. Watching the action scenes with the thrills of Bond racing downhill, leaving a trail of powdery snow behind, or going at nerve-racking speeds on snowmobiles that seem to fly, are enough to send a lot of adrenaline pumping collectively in cinema halls.

Even though very popular in action movies for nearly a century, in the real world skiing and winter sports still remain a niche, accounting for less than 0.14 pc of the overall tourism industry that is estimated to have reached USD 11.1 trillion in 2024. But it is one of the fastest growing segments in the world, recording a steadily high growth rate of over 10 pc every year in the post-pandemic era.

Data about the global value of ski and mountain tourism is patchy, says United Nations Tourism, the global tourism body under the UN but various estimates by market research firms place global ski tourism to have grown to around USD 15.7 billion in 2024. It is expected to grow further at 11 pc every year for the next decade to reach the market size of USD 49.2 billion by 2035.

This growth is influenced by multiple factors such as an increased demand for winter sports tourism, adventure travel and eco-friendly resort experiences that propel the industry forward. Most of these trends are driven by the younger travellers, a segment that has witnessed a spike in the past five years. Coming with higher disposable income and a greater interest in travelling, especially exploring outdoors around the world, the Gen Z and Millennial travellers are also heading in droves to mountains at home and overseas to get a piece of action.