Skiers Head North to Snow-Sure Scandinavia as the Alps Heat Up
(Bloomberg) — It’s just below freezing along Sweden’s western border and the sun is starting to peek out through the clouds. In the busy queue to the six-seater World Cup Express chairlift at the Stöten resort—roughly six hours’ drive from Stockholm—skiers are chatting away in Danish, Dutch, English and German.
These days, more of those who have a short drive to the Alps are opting instead to make longer trips north, to the colder mountains of Scandinavia. With a weak Swedish currency, it’s cheaper—never mind that day passes here cost about $50. And with rising winter temperatures in the Alps, people increasingly value the virtually guaranteed snow even if the peaks are not jagged or the villages as picturesque as in Switzerland or Italy. More than a quarter of Alpine resorts are already shut for the season and Austria had its warmest winter ever. Stöten, on the other hand, had almost a meter of snow in October alone, and the flakes just never stopped falling from the sky.
Johan Thorn, the chief executive officer of the Stöten resort, sees it as an opportunity worth taking. He got started early in the industry, organizing trips to slopes in Sweden and Norway as a teenager; to this day he looks and talks more like a ski bum than a corporate executive. This season he oversaw the opening of a new Ski Lodge with 49 apartments to accommodate more holiday goers— he says sales of ski passes, a key metric in his industry, are up 22% for the season; next up is another chairlift and a terrain expansion to the tune of 150 million kronor ($14.6 million) for the winter of 2025 to 2026.
For those unaccustomed to skiing in Scandinavia, the relatively small scale of the mountains can come as a surprise. Only a few of them can rival the Alpine experience with great off-piste backcountry or challenging black and red runs. While some locations sit north of the Arctic Circle— evoking images of extreme conditions, most resorts are scattered around central-western Sweden and southern Norway where the terrain is largely more gentle with plateaus at the top of the mountains, catering to intermediate and beginners, as well as cross-country skiers. Some resorts have adventure trails in the woods and the customary snow park with boxes, rails and jumps.
Stöten’s terrain is no exception. It tops out at 948 meters (3,109 feet); its 50 or so runs are a mix of blue, green, red and black, serviced by more than 20 lifts, including two speedy chairlifts complemented by T-bars and button lifts.
Over a traditional Swedish lunch of beef patties and potatoes at Stöten’s Brasseriet restaurant, Thorn says the boost in business has a lot to do with the weather, as well as the weak currency. “Stöten has got more guests because of the lack of snow in the Alps,” he tells Bloomberg.
Thorn took over the running of the resort, owned by two Norwegian brothers through their closely-held Adolfsen Group, more than ten years ago when he was in his early 30s. Revenue is up by more than 300% since then, he says. One of the reasons is the nearby Scandinavian Mountains Airport, in which his resort holds a minority stake. It opened in late 2019 and has direct flights from cities including Amsterdam, London, and Copenhagen.
“We’ve built an engine of growth in the middle of wilderness,” Thorn said of the part glass- and wood-clad building, which is more hangar than terminal. Set among rolling hills in vast expanses of forest, visitors can enjoy transfers to their resorts on a dog sled or snow mobile. With a 2.5 kilometer (1.6-mile) runway, “you can land a Boeing 747 there if you like,” Thorn says.
With the airport came the idea of building out Stöten’s accommodation scene to suit a more international clientele. Among the projects is the 250 million-krona Ski Lodge, which opened in December and is seen as the jewel in Stöten’s crown. It’s the resort’s single biggest investment yet, said Thorn, with the apartments designed in a Nordic, modern and luxurious style. In all, it has boosted the number of beds in his booking system by just shy of 10%.
About a three-hours drive north of Stöten, the mountains are more pronounced and the slopes longer and steeper. This is where the brand-new 2 billion-krona Björnrike Syd resort plans to open in time for the 2025 to 2026 ski season. The approximately 100 hectares of skiable terrain will have a maximum vertical drop of about 500 meters, with plans to operate three express six-seater chairlifts.
Björnrike Syd is set to connect to neighbouring Björnrike, which is part of one of Sweden’s largest sets of slopes, Vemdalen. Its four destinations offer downhill skiers a total of 42 lifts and 58 pistes, as well as plenty of trails for cross country skiing, ski touring and snowmobile driving.
Mats Svensson, chairman of Björnrike Syd, says that the resort was originally intended for domestic clients, but “the potential that we see in the foreign market has increased a lot.” He says snow-starved tourists are increasingly seeking an all-round winter experience—not just on the slopes but with towns that look like the postcard definition of winter. That’s true here, he says, with snow a plenty. The nearby village of Vemdalen’s eight-sided wooden church dating back to 1763 adds to its authentic feel.
Recounting his own February trip to Val Gardena in Italy’s Dolomites mountain range, Svensson decried the barren apres-ski landscape—despite good conditions on the mountain. “There wasn’t an ounce of snow in the village,” he says.
Resorts in the Nordic region should continue to expand their accommodation from family cabins and apartments to offer more services and a vibrant atmosphere if they want to attract more skiers from abroad, said Spencer Stanek, president of Mountainworks, a Colorado-based ski-center designer.
“Scandinavian mountain resorts are becoming an increasingly popular alternative” to continental Europe and “the international market is looking for more hotels and hotel-like accommodations, shopping streets, restaurant options, social interactions and modernized ski and recreation facilities,’’ Stanek said.
Mountainworks, which has developed plans for ski destinations from Colorado to Japan and the Alps, also worked on the Björnrike Syd project.
Having “wide, braided ski slopes among the forest creates a unique and diverse ski experience,” Stanek said.
Decades from now, Nordic ski resorts may emerge as relative winners from climate change, Harald Rice found in his recent PhD research at the University of Surrey. A warming climate is projected to cause greater impacts for much of the Alpine ski market, shortening seasons, he wrote. Northern Sweden could potentially represent a “last resort” for the European ski industry under higher emission scenarios by the mid-to-late decades of the century, he added.
Back at Stöten, skier Ian Miller from outside London is taking a break near the bunny slopes with his daughter. A regular in the Alps, it’s the first time his family visits the resort in Sweden. Relaxing outside the Ski Lodge, he says that “people looking for snow-sure conditions will come from the Alps to here.”
“I’m impressed by the lifts, the environment and the snow,” he says. “It’s lovely. I’ve never skied in Sweden before, but the fact that you can ski the whole mountain and just go in and out of the trees is really nice. We’ll definitely be back.”
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
