Biking, whether in the mountains around St. Anton, seeking thrills at one of Europe’s top bike parks in Saalbach- Hinterglemm, taking it easy by e-bike in the Kitzbüheler Alpen, or following the Giro-Italia route in the hills above Limone on Lake Garda, is the perfect way to explore the Alps this summer.

Passionate bikers want variety, and relaxation also forms part of the day. This could be a dip in a bathing lake along the way or an afternoon stroll, for example, to take a break from pushing the pedals. Those new to the sport and less enthusiastic bikers also need other activities to complete their break. So a biking holiday doesn’t just have to mean strenuous physical effort, but also downtime and fun. Several hotels in Austria and Italy offer so much more to do than pure biking.

Saalbach-Hinterglemm, for example, offers a huge trail network and Mountain Bike Legend Richie Schley has even put his name to it -  and if it’s good enough for him then it’s good enough for anyone. The ‘Bike-Circus’ comprises both resorts and there are lifts that go up from both town centres. There are trails for every level of rider ability and for every category of rider interest. The four-star Hotel Sonnleiten in Saalbach offers free use of their range of mountain bikes and helmets and with the free ‘joker Card’, your lift tickets are free too. Prices from £485 per person including flights from Gatwick, transfers, a week’s half board accommodation with Crystal Summer (www.crystalsummer.co.uk and 0871 230 8180).

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It’s the United Nations year of the water: seduce yourself with holidays around the wet element, such as bathing in a lake or even in a river, stroll along a murmuring beck, re-discover waterfalls, or indulge yourself in thermal waters and mystical treatments.

Today, Crystal Summer is launching the preview programme for 2014 featuring over 80 lakes and mountains resorts in Austria, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, and Switzerland.

For next summer, Crystal adds 11 new Discovery holiday packages giving customers more choice of resorts and hotel accommodation. These packages include flights, transfers, a week’s stay at a selected hotel, escorted excursions and other activities.

The starting price per person is from £505 for the Mayrhofen Active Discovery which includes: flights, transfers, a week’s b&b at the Hotel Obermair, two of the following activities – river rafting, family canyoning or high ropes course – an excursion to the one of the most spectacular dam’s in the world, the Zillergrund Dam, and an Austrian skittles night to experience some local tradition.

Also new for 2014 just to list a few:

·       Lucerne Discovery: stay in Lucerne, Switzerland; escorted trips to Mount Rigi and Mount Pilatus, the Stanserhorn mountain and day on a steam boat on the lake.

·       Jungfrau Discovery: stay in Wengen or Grindelwald, Switzerland; escorted tour of Interlaken’s best waterfalls, trip to the Jungfraujoch, Europe’s highest train station and to the Schynige Platte mountain

·       Lake Garda Discovery: stay in Riva, Desenzano or Torri del Benaco, Italy; escorted excursions to Venice, a lake tour and a wine tour with wine tasting

·       Classic Italian Discovery: stay in Torbole or Sirmione; escorted day trips to Venice, Verona and to the Dolomite mountains

Crystal continues to offer a walking escort service in 10 resorts in Austria, Italy and Slovenia at least twice a week. They know the walking area well and offer anything from gentle walks to challenging hikes as well as tips on the best routes and recommended places to find authentic hidden gems.

Prices start at £339 for seven nights’ self catering accommodation at the three-star Doria Apartments in Garda on Lake Garda, Italy, departing on 7 May 2014 from Gatwick inclusive of transfers.

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Tandem Skydive with the Red Devils in aid of Disability Snowsport UK (DSUK)

Where:                    Salisbury and Nottingham

Dates:                     Salisbury: 5 and 6 June; 6, 7 and 8 August

                              Nottingham: 18 and 19 June; 2 and 3 July; 3, 4 and 5 Sept

Cost of Jump:           £299 (to be paid out of your sponsorship at no cost to you as long as you raise £500 or more)

Reservation fee:       £25 (asap to Disability Snowsport UK)

Minimum Sponsorship:£500 

Age:                      16yrs – 65yrs. 40+ require declaration of fitness signed 

Maximum Height:      6.2

Maximum Weight:     15 stone.

Please check details on Click & Jump

This experience costs £299 including a £100 non refundable reservation fee. You can either pay for your jump yourself and raise as much money as you can for Disability Snowsport UK or if you wish to use your sponsorship money to pay towards your jump you will need to pay a £25  registration fee to Disability Snowsport UK and then raise a minimum sponsorship target of £500 (incl. £25 reg fee). Please ensure your sponsors are aware if they are contributing to the cost of your jump.

Tempted?

Crystal Ski supports Disability Snowsport UK and have so far raised over £120,000 for the charity.

Join the Disability Snowsports UK five-a-side annual football tournament at Goals in Wembley, London, on 8 October 2013, and raise money for the charity at the same time to help transform disabled people’s lives.

Held in a competitive spirit, but with the emphasis on fun, players of all abilities are invited to enter a team. Entry is open to all members of the winter sports community and beyond, with teams welcome from manufacturers, retail shops, ski resort representatives, holiday companies, ski clubs, instructors, hacks and other media people, past and present athletes as well as any winter sport enthusiast. Teams should consist of up to seven members and are expected to provide their own kit, refreshments and transport to the event.

Places in the tournament are limited to 24 teams and are subject to a first-come first-served basis. It will kick-off at 6.30pm and should be finished by 10.30pm.

So, what’s in for you? If your footwork is good and you can outplay the opposition, Crystal Ski, a long time supporter of Disability Snowsport UK, is providing a ski holiday to the Alps to the winning team. Additional prizes will be up for grabs throughout the event. Team Evolution, who provides alpine training programmes for young winter sports athletes, is organising the event in conjunction with Disability Snowsport UK.

To confirm your team’s place, please send a completed registration form, along with a cheque for £350 made payable to Disability Snowsport UK to Lynne Wiseman, Disability Snowsport UK, Glenmore Lodge, Grounds Glenmore, PH22 1QU. Email fundraising@disabilitysnowsport.org.uk Tel: +44 1479 861272, http://www.disabilitysnowsport.org.uk/

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Are you starting your countdown to the next ski season?

Only 32 weeks to go before Crystal Ski’s first flight to the European ski slopes and there are some rather good offers around to tempt you.

There is strong evidence of ski companies increasing the numbers of properties for next winter leading to more holidays on offer. However, next season skiers will still be price-sensitive and Crystal Ski continues to offer better value holidays, outstanding service and security.

Last winter, Crystal introduced a new ski deal offering a hotel credit deal of up to €100 per adult in selected hotels to spend in the hotel bar or restaurant. The feedback from last season was that our customers loved the excellent value this hotel credit offered them. As a result we have expanded this special offer, which must be booked by 30 September 2013, to 42 hotels in the Alps, Pyrenees as well as Bulgaria and Slovenia.

Hotel credits are available at the Hotel Terra Nova in La Plagne, at the Hotel Diva in Tignes, the Family Resort Seiblishof in Ischgl and the Hotel Aigle des Neiges in Val d’Isère, just to name a few. The hotel credit deal is available all season at all 42 hotels – click here for the full list.

The starting price to a hotel with a hotel credit deal is from £469 to the three-star Hotel Palarine in Arinsal, Andorra, including flights from Gatwick, transfers and half board with Crystal Ski (www.crystalski.co.uk; 0871 231 2256).

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‘Nearly as good as the Olympics, but definitely more snow’ said Steve Redgrave, and he should know!

The Crystal Ski Fest 2013 held this year for the first time in La Plagne, France, from 16-23 March was another successful event organised by the UK’s no 1 ski operator, Crystal Ski. All guests were watered and fed at the ski-to-and-from-the-door Hotel Terra Nova located at the foot of a green slope close to the bars in Plagne Centre.

The week started with huge snow storm with over a metre falling over a 48 hour period, however, this presented no challenge to the coaches Alain Baxter and Lynn Sharp as well as the British Association of Snowsport Instructors (BASI) Gareth Roberts, Alex Leaf and John Gardiner.

As the week went on, the weather improved and the giant slalom on Thursday took place in sunny conditions on the Olympic Stade run in La Plagne Centre.

The race was the culmination of the participants’ seven days in the French ski resort which included professional coaching and video feedback. The competition involved not just an individual giant slalom speed race, a team relay but also a dual slalom competition was also held on the same slope. Après-ski events included a VIP party hosted by Sir Steve, the chance to ski against Britain’s most successful Olympian and fellow Olympic rower Ben Hunt-Davis, and ‘An Evening With …’ session where Steve, Ben and Alain did a special Q&A about their deep involvement in London 2012 and a preview to Sochi 2014.

In a sport where split-seconds count, or at least the participants hope they do, new techniques and equipment were tested to boost times. Apparently, and this could only be a rumour, one member of the team stripped down to his boxer shorts for the speed race in the hope that his slippery body would help him to gain speed. During the relay race, another Ski Fest’ler tried to shorten the course by skiing THROUGH the gates, but luckily wasn’t disqualified.

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A million passengers have now reached the French Alps through Chambéry-Savoie and Grenoble-Isère airport – the fastest way to reach all of the major ski resorts in France.

VINCI Airports, which operates the airports on behalf of the local authorities (Councils of Savoie and Isère), says its investment in the airports’ infrastructure is paying off for travellers who enjoy transfer times of an hour less than from other alpine airports. VINCI Airports recruits and trains more than 200 seasonal workers in each of the airports ensuring efficient management of ski flights. Traffic is concentrated on weekends with more than 120 commercial flights landing and over 30,000 travellers passing through these two airports.

Crystal Ski flies to Chambéry-Savoie airport once a week with up to 17 flights from 11 regional airports including Gatwick, Manchester, Glasgow, Belfast and Dublin. 350,000 customers have used this route since 2004. Chambéry-Savoie is less than 10 minutes from the centre of Chambéry and only 15 minutes from Aix-les-Bains. It also offers direct road access to Rhône-Alpes motorways and is the best possible gateway to France’s mountain ski and summer resorts, spas, and great lakes.

Grenoble-Isère airport, the gateway to the Isère ski resorts (Alpe d’Huez, Les Deux Alpes), is the other VINCI airport Crystal Ski flies to once a week from up to seven UK airports. In total, Crystal Ski brings over 50,000 British skiers to the French Alps via Chambéry and Grenoble Airports every year.

Simon Cross, Managing Director of Crystal Ski:

“We are proud to work with VINCI Airports and the success of our ski business is helped by the daily cooperation with the local airport management and excellent service they offer our customers in the French Alps.”

Anthony Martin, VINCI Airports regional managing director comments:

“Our partnership with Crystal Ski means tens of thousands of British skiers enjoy the best the French Alps have to offer every year. Through the planned acquisition of the Portuguese airports, VINCI is becoming a major operator in Europe, which will allow to strengthen further the synergies and the business development with our key partners like TUI Group.”

PHOTO: To celebrate the occasion, VINCI Airports and Crystal Ski offered a special welcome to its one millionth passenger, Mr David Skepper from Buckinghamshire in England, who arrived on 16 March, 10:25 local time at Chambéry-Savoie on flight Thomson Airways TOM4624 from London Gatwick. Sir Steve Redgrave, Olympic gold medallist is congratulating Mr Skepper. Also in the picture: Anthony Martin, VINCI Airports regional managing director, Laurence Erbs, Chambery-Savoie airport manager, Ian Davis, Crystal Ski product director and Nial McLean, Crystal Ski general manager France.

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Notes to Editors

About VINCI Airports

VINCI Airports is the concession holder for Chambéry-Savoie and Grenoble-Isère airports in the French Alps as well as of Nantes airport, first regional charter airport in France where TUI Travel transports about 300,000 passengers per year through its French subsidiaries Marmara and Nouvelles-Frontières.

VINCI Airports has recently been selected as ‘Preferred Bidder’ by the Portuguese government for the acquisition of 100% of Aeroportos de Portugal (‘ANA’). ANA is the exclusive operator of the 10 international airports in Portugal (Lisbon, Porto, Faro, Madeira and Azores Islands), where TUI Travel group has a very strong activity (about 300.000 passengers per year).

About Crystal Ski (part of TUI Travel PLC):

TUI Travel PLC is a FTSE 100 leisure travel company listed on the London Stock Exchange. It was formed on 3 September 2007 by the merger of First Choice Holidays PLC and the Tourism Division of TUI AG. The company mainly serves the leisure travel customer and is organised and managed through four business sectors: Mainstream, Accommodation & Destinations, Specialist and Activity and Emerging Markets. The Specialist and Activity sector now consists of six divisions:  Adventure, Education, Marine, North American Specialist, Sport, and the Specialist Holiday Group.

The Specialist Holiday Group (SHG) consists of 19 businesses operating from the UK and Ireland. Specialist travel experiences include ski holidays, city breaks, luxury mountain hotels and tailor-made trips to the Far East, Africa, Australia or North America. Crystal Ski is part of SHG and is the leading ski holiday tour operator in the UK, with more than 30 years’ experience of providing ski holidays in Europe, North America and Japan.

Geilo is a traditional “chocolate-box” village at the heart of Norway’s winterland region with ski areas on both sides of the valley. It offers 40 pistes to suit mainly intermediate and beginner skiers, several snow parks and over 220km of cross country tracks.

Hemsedal, renowned as the biggest ski area in Norway with an excellent snow record, offers a huge diversity of terrain, some convenient slope-side lodging and good children’s nursery slopes.

The small resort of Beitostølen located in the Jotunheimen National Park offers a well planned and efficient lift network, a high quality English speaking ski school and gentle, confident building slopes for families, beginners and low intermediates. There is plenty for children from the Ski Fun Land to the special sledge lift, mini-snowmobiles, husky sledding and floodlit night skiing.

Crystal Ski special launch offers:

-      Free and reduced kids places in all resorts if room is shared with two adults. Price from £1669 for a family of six in Beitostølen

-      2for1 lift passes in all resorts for all departure dates in January and 2 February. Limited availability (save up to £210)

-      Learn to ski package including equipment hire, lift pass and tuition for only £199 in Geilo (save £163). Departure 5 January

The weekly flights from Gatwick to Fagernes will operate from Sunday 22 December 2013 until 16 March 2014 as the final inbound.

Trevor De Villiers, international sales & marketing director, Norway – Home of Skiing commented: “Following an absence of almost five years, we’re delighted to welcome Crystal Ski back to our ski resorts. Flying direct from London Gatwick to Fagernes Airport, Crystal will offer the customers what must be some of the shortest ski transfers in Europe – only 45 minutes to Beitostølen! We have enjoyed charter services for almost 20 years from the UK, and I know that our loyal customers will welcome the return of the UK’s No1 ski operator to Norway.

We are very excited to have the British skiers in our resorts, as they really go out and enjoy the full benefits of our unique winter wonderland resorts, from skiing and spa indulgence to husky safaris in our spectacular and unspoilt nature,” he continued.

Crystal Ski managing director Simon Cross: “The snow-sure resorts, the varied terrain and excellent family facilities in Norwegian resorts have always been popular with British skiers, but no one has facilitated what customers also want: making ski holidays to Norway more affordable. Norway isn’t known as a cheap destination, but we’ve managed to use our buying power to get some great value half board options plus incredibly inexpensive self catering cabins and apartments.”  

Prices for a week’s stay start at £375 (per person based on six sharing) at the Hovi Cabins in Beitostølen on self catering basis including return flights from Gatwick and transfers departing on 5 January 2014.

For bookings call Crystal Ski 0871 231 2256 or visit www.crystalski.co.uk

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Vennlig hilsen

Marion

The Auenfeldjet is a two-kilometre long lift starting at the upper station of the Weibermahd chairlift in Lech, crossing the Auenfeld pass to the Geissbühel Alpe creating a link between Lech-Zürs and the resorts of Warth-Schröcken – adding another 64km of piste to the Lech-Zürs ski area.

With the opening of this new cable-car, the largest skiing area in Vorarlberg with a total of 47 ski-lifts and cable-cars and 190 kilometres of piste will be created. Adding the ski area of St Anton, St. Christoph and Stuben, the range of facilities is even larger: 94 lifts and cable-cars and 340 kilometres of piste. This places the Arlberg on level with the largest ski resorts in the world and increases the diversity for all winter sports enthusiasts.

This cable-car will be built with utmost care for the environment: trees and the high-alpine vegetation will be preserved, water and source protection areas will not be interfered with. Any intervention with the natural landscape is restricted to the construction itself. Since no new ski pistes or access to slopes will be created, the animal world will not be disturbed in its existing habitat. The cable-car itself will feature just a few high pylons at the western edge of the Auenfeld. There is also a positive side effect in that the existing 30 kV power line crossing the

Auenfeld will disappear from the landscape and will be re-laid underground in the cable-car’s cable ditch. For this reason, the Auenfeldjet project is also referred to as a prime example of a non-invasive transport link.

For more details and 3D views on the new cable-car see www.auenfeldjet.at

Crystal Ski offers ski holidays to Lech-Zürs and St Anton in the Arlberg ski region. Prices are from £529 in St Anton at the catered Chalet Ilona (includes flights and transfers) and from £695 at the catered Chalet Hilde in Lech-Zürs. Crystal Ski (www.crystalski.co.uk; 0871 231 2256)

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AUENFELDJET facts and figures

Start of construction: spring 2013

Planned opening: winter 2013/14

Length: 2,071.66 metres

Height above sea level, lower station: 1,719 metres

Height above sea level, upper station: 1,786 metres

Type of cable-car: single-cable continuously circulating

cable-car with 10 gondolas, made by Doppelmayr

Passenger capacity: 1,490 persons per hour

Investment amount: EUR 12 million including avalanche defence system

Owner: Auenfeldjet GmbH & Co. KG

New skiing area at Lech Zürs and Warth-Schröcken from winter 2013/14

Number of lifts and cable-cars: 47

Total length of pistes and slopes: 190km

Ski Arlberg skiing area from winter 2013/14

Number of lifts and cable-cars: 94

Total length of pistes and slopes: 340km

Ski Arlberg ski-pass valid for the entire Arlberg region including the Warth-Schröcken area.

To make it more attractive, Crystal Ski has teamed up with them and offer a 10% reduction of the course fee for the first BASI Level 1 instructor course in either Alpine, Snowboard, Nordic, Adaptive or Telemark disciplines.

Instructor training courses are run throughout the year in both the UK and overseas. BASI courses develop not only technical and teaching skills, but encourage the development of other core key skills like communication and leadership. The BASI pathway starts at level 1 and goes through to the International ISTD Award, level 4.

To receive the 10% reduction, the course must be booked by 30 June 2013 and is only available to Crystal Ski customers who have booked a holiday from 1 January 2013. Course must start before 31 December 2013.

For more information, please visit http://www.crystalski.co.uk/about-crystal/our-partners/basi/

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