Ski holidays in France - January 2021 and Covid pandemic

score:19

Accepted answer

Nothing, NOTHING, is certain and not subject to change during a pandemic... If additional measures become necessary they will be implemented and announced.

Is opening of ski resorts on 7th of january confirmed?

No. It is not confirmed. It is the planned reopening date communicated to the ski association on Dec 11, before the "new" situation in the UK and any number of possible public health situations that could happen in following weeks.

« Le Premier ministre a indiqué que l’ouverture prévisionnelle pourrait se faire à partir du 7 janvier sous réserve » d’une poursuite du reflux de l’épidémie, a déclaré le secrétaire d’État au Tourisme Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne vendredi, à l’issue d’une visio-conférence avec des élus et acteurs de la montagne.

"The Prime Minister has indicated that a provisional opening could happen on 7 January, subject to ..." a continued decline of the epidemic, declared the Secretary of State for Tourism Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne on Friday, after a videoconference with elected representatives and stakeholders from the mountains.

https://www.lechotouristique.com/article/ski-vers-une-reouverture-des-remontees-mecaniques-le-7-janvier

Or is it subject to change at any moment?

Yes, even if the government approves a reopening plan. See Switzerland, much of the German speaking part decided to close the ski areas in face of rising cases, even though they were adamant to keep them open earlier.

Is there a date it will be known for certain that resorts either open or remain closed?

You can only know for sure on the day in question.

Does it depend on location?

Unlikely. There could be regional measures but national measures are nothing new. Additionally ski resorts in France are rather concentrated.

If covid is a concern - I have recovered from it 2 months ago, I wouldn't even notice had I not been tested.

The measures are not about you and largely not there to protect your health alone; they are for the health care system and its workers as well as other vulnerable populations.

In Poland the ruling party has a tendency to annouce at friday 11pm new restrictions that start next day. I'm hoping that is not the case in France.

Measures are not effective if people have time to break them. Previous restrictions in France had been announced a couple days or even one day before.

Upvote:1

The countries that have been most successful in curbing the psndemic, such as Australia, NZ and a few others have a) strict border controls and b) strict quarantine rules. Basically if you want to enter, you have to spend some weeks in a quarantine camp first. And pay for it. Even if you are a citizen (in fact, non-citizens have a hard time entering at all).

I actually had not expected European countries to implement a)(strict border controls) anytime soon, but many countries did so over the weekend for travellers from GB, and with very little prior warning. I personally would not be surprised if they add b) (stricter quarantine measures) too if numbers do not go down.

Upvote:3

The question is moot if you're in the UK

With the new strain of Covid discovered in the UK, all travel to and from the UK has been halted by European countries. So you won't be going anywhere outside the UK for a while.

It seems likely that the UK is merely the first European country to do the testing and show higher infection rates in people, and other countries are going to discover a similar problem. In that case things could get more heavily locked down elsewhere. Hopefully that's not the case and the new strain is confined to the UK, so halting travel is enough to stop/limit its spread elsewhere.

Either way, Brits aren't going skiing abroad any time soon.

Upvote:6

I'd look at it the other way round. French ski resorts are closed up to and including 6th January. At some point before then, they will review how the pandemic has changed since announcing that decision on 11th December, and decide if the conditions have improved enough that it is now safe for ski resorts to open.

I would be very surprised to see the resorts open in January. In the unlikely event that they do, they may well be restricted to French nationals or French residents (similar to the Swiss restrictions).

Update 10th January

Lifts haven't opened yet and are closed until at least 6th February. An update will be given on 20th January. The first half of February is peak season for ski resorts. If they can't open for that period, then I expect them to stop maintaining the snow for this season and sending home any staff they can.

Upvote:49

No one knows.

Most experts expect that Christmas will cause a significant spike in Covid cases due to more travel and social gathering and a strong motivation to "flout the rules". This may partially compensated by speedy rollout of vaccines, but we don't know yet how this will go.

If the spike is significant, it's quite likely that the government will take action and increase restrictions. Given that one of the initial super spreader events was actually a ski resort, ski restrictions are very likely.

Frankly, travelling during a serious pandemic for touristic reasons seems quite irresponsible: you got lucky but many others did not. The smart thing to do would be to stay home until vaccination has created enough immunity to keep most people safe.

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