Media

The first media reaction after publication in the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung was by Schweizer Blick just one day later, on January 28th 2013, followed by a wave of news coverage in Switzerland. Apart from some daily newspapers (f.e. Bild-Zeitung), various TV and radio stations also reported about the ‘slope length scam’.

As a result of a dpa news item on February 18th 2013, the ‚battle of length’ was taken up by further German and Austrian media, including the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Welt, Focus, Kronenzeitung, Schweizer Sonntagszeitung and the Wiener Standard. Consumer protection agencies and trade unions got involved, accusing the ski resorts of deception and threatening legal action. Ski resorts which had massaged their figures particularly generous, reported cancellations. Christoph Schrahe was interviewed on radio and television (Servus TV, ORF, SRF and others), reporting on the results of his study.

After a quiet spring in summer and autumn, the topic gained momentum again in August 2013. It started with the UK publication Where to Ski & Snowboard Guide which reported in a three-page editorial about ‚Piste extent – the truth’ about the slope lengths and promoted this heavily in a press release. The Sunday Times picked up on this and reported it on September 9th 2013 on page 7. A French reporter took up the topic on September 20th and it was then disseminated in the French media, including a report in Le Figaro.

Via France, the slope lengths made it across the Pyrenees to Spain and the reports in the UK media even lead to responses on the other side to the globe, in Australia. As late as November, reports were published in the Italian media, f.e. in La Stampa, with a focus on the Monterosa Ski resort. When Christoph Schrahe visited the resort in January 2014 for an update, he was filmed by the Swiss television.

In the 2014/15 season the topic was taken up again by AFP, followed by further reports in the French media. Christoph Schrahe provided an update on the status quo on French television (France 2) in February 2015.

The Daily Telegraph already reported about the new seal of approval.

The Telegraph about the new seal of approval

Revealed: the ski resorts that exaggerate piste lengths
Ski resorts in France, Switzerland and Italy accused of failing to modify wildly exaggerated claims over the length of their runs, despite damning independent data.

Europe’s top ski resorts exaggerate the length of their pistes, in one case in Switzerland even tripling the figures, according to German research on the slopes. But despite irrefutable proof that they are are wide of the mark, the vast majority either refuse to change their outlandish claims or are “steering round the issue” by coming up with numbers that “nobody understands but sound big”, experts say.