Closed ski lifts in the Italian resort of Ponte di Legno
Credit: Reuters
They were all set to go. Pistes had been perfectly groomed, ski passes sold, hotels reopened.
Then came the bombshell – Italy’s ski resorts, due to have reopened on Monday, were ordered to stay closed.
The unexpected decision, which infuriated operators and hoteliers, was announced by the government on Sunday night – just hours before skiers and snowboarders were due to arrive in resorts around the country, from the Alps to the Apennines.
The government, led by former central banker Mario Draghi and only sworn in on Saturday, is concerned about the stubbornly high numbers of Covid-19 deaths and infections.
There is acute alarm over the new strains that are circulating in Italy, particularly the highly contagious British variety, which now makes up nearly a fifth of all new infections.
The fury over the ski ban is the first crisis for Mr Draghi, who was parachuted in as the head of a broad-based administration after the previous coalition collapsed.
With chairlifts closed, the only way to get up the mountain is to hike
Credit: Reuters
The eleventh-hour decision is a crushing blow for the country’s ski sector, which has been shut down all winter as a result of the pandemic.
“We’re very disappointed and very angry,” said Simone Munalli, who runs the ski school in Monte Terminillo, a resort in the Apennines, two hours’ drive north of Rome.
Monte Terminillo
“This is the kind of thing you’d expect in a banana republic. The government tells us we can open up again, we work hard to prepare, then at the very last minute they change their minds. It’s unbelievable,” he told The Telegraph from his office on the snow.
His 30 ski instructors, who were fully booked for the week, had all undergone voluntary coronavirus tests.
“It cost us €1,000. We didn’t have to do it, but we did because we are serious, responsible people. We’ve been working for a week to get everything ready, cleaning 500 pairs of skis and 200 snowboards. Now it’s all wasted.”
Rubbing salt into the wound for ski resorts is the fact that the snow this winter is the best for years.
And the weather on Monday was perfect – bright sunshine, blue skies and the temperature hovering around zero degrees centigrade, keeping the snow crisp and deep.
Empty chairlifts and a lone skier walking up a piste in the resort of Ponte di Legno
Credit: Reuters
But instead of being packed with skiers and snowboarders, the pistes at Monte Terminillo were empty apart from a few children having fun on sledges.
Disappointed families trundled their suitcases across the snow, checking out of hotels early.
Some people decided to stay and make the best of it, walking on trails through snow-encrusted woodland or hiring snowshoes.
“We heard on the radio there would be no skiing but by then we were on our way,” said Damiano Mencarelli, 23, an aeronautical mechanic, who had been hoping to ski with his girlfriend, Miriam Omrane, 24, a nurse.
“We’ve got a sledge and we may rent snowshoes. It’s a beautiful day and we don’t want to waste it.”
Giugliano Aniello, the owner of a bar in the resort, was in a rather darker mood. “We’re governed by cretins,” he said. “This is meant to be a pro-business government, yet they are ruining us. We lost Christmas and New Year, and now this. I’m extremely disappointed.”
The government postponed the opening until March 5, but many ski operators said that was far too late and doubted whether it would be worth opening for the tail-end of the season.
Thousands of businesses say that compensation promised by the previous government for the lost season has not arrived.
The hard-Right League party, which is strong in northern regions and part of the new coalition, was particularly critical of the decision.
Luca Zaia, the League governor of Veneto region, said it was outrageous that ski resorts had been given just a few hours’ notice. The economic damage to the sector was “colossal”, he said.
Alberto Cirio, the governor of the northern Piedmont region, which is packed with ski resorts, said: “If this if how the new government supports businesses, it is extremely worrying. The virus numbers have been known for days – to wait until Sunday evening to make the announcement shows an unacceptable lack of respect towards people.”
Operators had insisted they could make the sport safe from the virus by limiting the number of skiers through online booking systems, cutting the capacity of chairlifts and cable cars and insisting that masks be worn at all times. But with the virus having led to more than 93,000 deaths and thousands of people being infected every day, many medical experts had counselled against reopening the ski sector, which normally brings in revenue of around €10 billion a year.
“The (ski) stations have invested a lot to prepare the slopes, hire personnel, get organised with hoteliers,” said Flavio Roda, the president of the Italian Winter Sports Federation. “A lot of money was invested and yet again our world is heavily penalised.”
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