LATEST NEWSBASI Celebrates Record Growth
27th June 2011
The British Association of Snowsports Instructors (BASI) has qualified its 15,000th member but a recent Planet Ski article highlights the possibility that there may not be enough jobs to go round for ski and snowboard instructors as the overall UK ski market continues to decline. The number of people from the UK going skiing or snowboarding has fallen from 1.3m in the season of 2007/08 to 950,000 in 2009/10 according to figures released in the Crystal Ski Industry Report. Overall the British ski market is at its lowest level for a decade and has plummetted by over 25% during the last three seasons. Yet the active membership of BASI has grown in the same period from 3,000 to almost 6,000 as people seek instructor qualifications. It is one of the few areas that has seen growth in the UK snowsports sector. At the end of last winter an Italian skier, Luca Cheula, enabled BASI to reach its milestone of having qualified 15,000 people since it started delivering courses 50 years ago.
"Reaching 15,000 qualified members is a significant milestone in BASI's history. As a training body, we are encouraged that so many people are pursuing a career in the profession and that they are securing the relevant qualifications and training to become professional instructors across the various snowsports disciplines," commented the chairman of BASI, Gareth Roberts.
However the success of BASI has brought its own problems for the ski and snowboard instructors, as supply threatens to outstrip demand. At Christmas, New Year, Half-term and Easter there is usually enough work to go round, but at other times it may only be the experienced instructors or the lucky ones who will find regular work. The director of a ski school in one of the popular alpine resorts last winter had 30 staff working and yet had received well-over 1,000 applications for jobs the previous Autumn. Some British-run ski schools in The Alps have 25% less instructors working for them than they did three years ago as demand has fallen away. Yet BASI has ridden the falling market. Partly because many people do its courses because they want to improve their skiing, gain a professional qualification should they chose to use it or because they only want to work a couple of weeks a year during peak season.
Source: Planet Ski
