Short Break Ski Chalets

Ski weekend chalets - how do they work?

All chalet companies will prefer to take 7 night bookings either Saturday to Saturday or Sunday to Sunday so that they can be dove-tailed on a back to back basis. Guests from one booking will vacate the chalet on a set changeover day and the next guests will arrive later that same day. In this way chalet companies (often working on tight profit margins) maximise their seasonal revenues. Indeed highly popular chalets will be booked out from the beginning of December right through to mid April without a single empty night.

Sometimes, however, (usually in the low season months of January and March) a chalet company will accept a short stay booking from a client. A chalet owner might take the view that a booking of 3 or 4 nights of the week is better than running the risk of not getting a booking at all. Bookings are therefore taken from Thursday to Sunday, or perhaps Saturday to Wednesday, for a price which is a little less than the full 7 night weekly rate.

This then leaves the remaining nights of the week available to book by another client. Given that a chalet company has already accepted a booking which supplies most of the revenue it expects for a full 7 night booking they then sell the remaining available nights for a heavily reduced price. If they can sell these remaining available nights the income provides the 'icing on the cake'. To attract guests to book these available short break ski chalets companies will offer a heavily reduced price (see below).