Revealed: The ski resorts with the best-value lift passes in Europe

The ski resorts with the best value-for-money lift passes in Europe have been revealed, with the top spot working out at less than 30p per kilometre of piste.

Research on 21 of the continent’s top resorts by holiday operator Sunweb analysed the cost of six-day lift passes and the number of kilometres of accessible slopes over the 2022/23 season

The top spot – when broken down by kilometre – was taken by the Dolomiti Superski area in north-east Italy, with a total price of €373, working out as €0.31 per km across its 12 resorts throughout the Dolomites.

Its 1,200km domain is twice as big as the next best-value lift pass location, France’s Port Du Soleil – with a pass costing €292.50, or €0.49 per km.

It’s back to Italy for the third-place destination, with the smaller area of Sauze D’Oulxin in the Piedmont region coming in at €0.56 per km, but at the lowest overall cost of resorts analysed at €223. The freestyling skiing event of the 2006 Winter Olympics was held here, so expect plenty of halfpipes and big-air jumps if that takes your fancy.

The research named Vallnord Pal-Arinsal in Andorra as offering the worst value pass, with just 63km of ski-able slopes, meaning that the cost per km is a whopping €4.29, despite a fairly low overall price of €270 for a six-day pass. Similarly, Sunweb said “the steep price of a pass in Solden doesn’t give skiers much bang for their buck”; the Austrian resort offers 144km of slopes, setting keen snow-seekers back €2.62 per km.

According to Sunweb’s bookings data, Val Thorens in the Trois Vallées area in the French Alps was the most popular destination for UK holidaymakers. A six-day ski pass priced at €306 works out as €2.04 per km, though this drops to €0.60 per km if skiers upgrade to the full Trois Vallées lift pass (currently priced at €375 and covering 600km of slopes, making it the biggest connected ski area in the world).