Catered Chalets

This is going to be a weird post. With all the major humanitarian problems the world suffers with I can't see that there will be a lot of sympathy for my little rant here, but anyway, this has been bugging me so...

Chalet holidays are too cheap. Since moving out to France we've met a lot of chalet operators and not one of them can actually afford to live out here the whole year round purely on what their chalet generates in the Winter. And yet they all continue to make a loss and do oodles of other jobs to compensate and carry on living their Alpine lifestyles. I think this is madness. There are about 100 independent chalet operators in Morzine. They're all in close competition with one another and they all charge about the same amount.

Peak weeks are about 500 - 600 EUR and low weeks are about 400 - 500 EUR. For that you get 7 nights accommodation, breakfast and a 4-course evening meal. So that's an average of about 70 EUR per night per person. A four-course meal at a restaurant (and a lot of chalets serve very high quality food made by professional chefs) would set you back at least 30 EUR. And there's usually free wine. So let's say it's 50 EUR a night to stay and 20 for food. Most places now have en-suite bathrooms, saunas, and outdoor hot-tubs. All this for about 70 EUR a night.

So now, my question is, where can you stay, anywhere in the UK, for 60 GPB a night with breakfast and supper included? You can't even stay in a Travel Lodge off the M25 for that money. The last time i stayed at a Travel Lodge off the M25 (which was recently unfortunately) i don't recall seeing the hot-tub and sauna either.

Basically I just don't get it. Your lift pass is about as expensive as your accommodation. Why do chalet operators willingly make a loss and their lives so difficult? They could charge double and it would still be value for money: 140 EUR for 4 star accommodation with breakfast and supper? Last month we paid over 200 GBP for Natalie to stay in a random 4 star hotel in London for one night - no breakfast and no supper.

They are driving themselves out of business. It's not even cheaper to stay self-catered. We've tried both and there's really no super-cheap option. Possibly Caravaneige would be cheaper. Caravaneige is staying in a caravan in a campsite in the snow.

So... what am I saying? I think i've even confused myself here. What I'm saying to my non-chalet-operator readers is that you should stay in a (good) catered chalet or hotel because it's unbelievably cheap! Most chalet companies have a lifespan of about 5 years - and then the owners give up and run self-catered apartments or just pack up and leave. It's also really only the English that do catered chalet holidays. The French, Dutch, and Germans stay in small hotels or self-catered or in the aforementioned campsites. I suspect unless something changes (like the Euro plummeting) that the traditional English catered chalet holiday could be coming to an end.

As I said, not really earth-shattering. I don't expect this post to be on CNN or anything, I just think it's strange to willingly make a loss and work so hard just to be out in the Alps. When you read on the operator's website that they love the mountains, I can attest that, and this (sort of) proves that, they really do!