One local tourism official said Verbier was 'a holiday resort, not a prison'
Credit: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP
Many on social media called the fleeing Britons selfish and irresponsible, while local tourist chiefs rallied around their most important foreign clientele, who comprise 20 per cent of Verbier’s winter guests. One said: "We are a holiday resort, not a prison. I don’t blame them for leaving rather than sitting cooped up in a bedroom 24 hours a day."
Simon Wiget, the director of the Verbier Tourist Office, said: "The British must not be stigmatised. They arrived in Verbier anticipating fresh mountain air, but then suddenly they are stuck in a hotel room. The reflex would be to leave if you are told this. I think the vast majority of people would have believed they were acting responsibly and within the law."
Mr Wiget insisted there was "no great escape in the dead of night" but that it was not for hotels to enforce restrictions.
Among those who fled the country last week was Andy Wigmore, a business partner of Aaron Banks and one of the self-styled "Bad boys of Brexit".
Mr Wigmore had flown to Wengen with his wife, two children and two of their friends for a week of skiing and had been due to return home on Christmas Eve. They were on the slopes when they were warned by a local that the border would close at 6pm that evening, prompting them to drop everything and flee.
"We had to get out of there or we’d have been stuck," he told the Telegraph. "The Swiss are incredibly efficient, their track and trace system is world class, they track you wherever you are and are constantly texting you.
"We had three-and-a-half hours. We dropped the car at the airport, then went to Basel and took a train over the border. There were a couple of other Brits doing the same thing. We thought it best to take a little village route to evade capture if we missed the deadline.
"There were so many police around at the border, we saw Brits being stopped. We only just made it with 20 minutes to spare – if we hadn’t had the tip-off, we would have been stuck."
They managed to catch a train to Strasbourg and then on to Paris, where they caught the last Eurostar back to London. "We had other children with us and their parents wanted them back for Christmas, so the pressure was on," Mr Wigmore said.
"I don’t think it was irresponsible and we didn’t break any rules – it’s about being sensible, and we quarantined when we got back to the UK."
Skiers in Verbier pass a large sign warning them to maintain social distancing
Credit: Jean-Christophe Bott/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Hoteliers in Verbier described how Britons had spirited themselves away. An employee at Hotel Ermitage said: "We had one British person but he quit the hotel in the early hours of Christmas morning without telling us. I called him in his room and there was no answer. The room was empty. I had his credit card details so it was no problem in terms of payment.
"He had been due to stay until December 28. But I am a hotel, not a jail. These people are on holiday. I don’t blame them for leaving rather than sitting cooped up in a bedroom 24 hours a day."
Another hotelier, who did not want to be identified, said two British guests who had been due to stay until Boxing Day left on Christmas Eve.
The hotelier added: "To be honest, I am surprised they stayed as long as they did. They didn’t tell me they were leaving. Maybe they thought I would tell the police – which of course is not my job."
Among those who stayed to quarantine were Tom Waycott, 27, and Josh Pitchford, 28, from London, who had arrived at the Hotel La Rotonde on December 18 for a five-day holiday.
Mr Waycott said they stuck to the rules to avoid the "hefty" fine of up to 10,000 Swiss francs (£8,300), adding: "We have a balcony, which has been a saviour because we are literally not allowed out of our room. The hotel has been brilliant and they put food outside the door for us.
"A friend told us about a Brit on Christmas Eve who scanned his ski lift pass, which had his name on it, at the bottom of Les Ruinettes lift and by the time he was at the top there were officials waiting for him."
Guy Ordway, the co-director of the Element Concept ski school, said the retrospective quarantine was "very unlike the usual Swiss response", adding: "It was a bad policy, badly communicated, badly implemented and badly followed."
Some suggested that reports of a mass exodus had been exaggerated, while others said the Swiss had sympathy for those who had fled.
Jean-Marc Sandoz, a spokesman for the municipality of Bagnes, which includes Verbier, said he understood why British tourists were "a little angry with Switzerland".
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