Skiing holiday tips as snow falls

[December 10th 2008]

As Europe sees the best early snow for years, skiers are being given advice on how to save money on their skiing holidays.

Wigadoo, which describes itself as the UK’s leading website for booking trips and events, has come up with 10 tips on how to save on a ski holiday. The tips include book in groups, book ahead, buy ski equipment in the UK, and be prepared to do a bit of bartering.

“We’ve seen an avalanche of groups booking last-second trips to the slopes to enjoy the best snow for decades,” says Wigadoo.com CEO, Andy Cockburn. He recently won the Courvoisier Future 500 ‘One To Watch 2009’ award.

“Some groups have even used the site to get all the money together for a ski trip, and then wait until the best deal comes up,” Cockburn explains. Wigadoo allows groups to use a virtual prepaid MasterCard to book everything securely and to collect the money from the whole group instantly.

“Normally as the organiser I would pay for the car rental, ski hire and lift passes out of my account and we would sort out the money when we were there. However, I would always end up a bit out of pocket and this year that just wasn’t an option,” says Olivia Gwynn.

She used Wigadoo’s Facebook application to organise a skiing holiday for friends. Two days later, she had collected all the money, booked a bargain deal and transferred the surplus cash into her own account to use as a kitty.

“Skiers are passionate about their hobby. A poor exchange rate or even a recession is not enough to put powder monkeys off their annual pilgrimage to the slopes,” comments Dan Fox, MD of SkiWeekends.com.

Wigadoo’s tips for a skiing holiday also include skiing outside the eurozone in places like the Czech Republic while the pound is weak against the euro. Buying lift passes on the internet from the UK is often cheaper than on the slopes, it advises. And with the recent fall in petrol prices it suggests that for groups it may even be cheaper to drive to the Alps rather than to fly.

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