Ski hill operators not worried about lack of snow yet
One thing missing so far from this Christmas season is proper Christmas weather: snowy conditions and temperatures well below zero degrees Celsius. So far this month, the mercury has stubbornly stayed well above freezing, for instance, daily it has been around 11 degrees Celsius). That has some skiers suffering - with very few runs at any ski hills operating. Still, it's too early to get too worried yet: as Jan Velinger reports, operators are confident things will soon take a turn for the better.
Though there's no question the season could have begun a lot sooner - last year's started mid-November - the late start is not that unusual and travel agencies too have not really registered any significant impact on package sales. Tomas Brejcha, spokesman for the Cedok travel agency, says that experienced skiers understand that the beginning of the season is always a bit of a risk.
"Most skiers of course count on conditions being better in the New Year. Lately we didn't see a drop but actually a rise in the number of clients. But they're not skiers. As a rule many who travel at the end of the year don't go for skiing but for hiking and outdoor walks."
If there is a negative impact from all the mild weather it could come most notably for local hotels - that may suffer fairly late cancellations by Czechs who thought they'd be skiing by now. Unless the weather conditions improve that could be unavoidable. Once it does gets underway, this season will then have a lot to live up to. Last year, 2005/2006, saw a record numbers of skiers and snowboarders taking advantage of much more snow. Now it's all a matter of things picking up. Snowhill's Radka Zahorova once more:"We are expecting colder weather next weekend and then we can start our snow guns. We are hoping we get a lot of snow and that the winter will be fun!"