For more than 150 years, St Moritz has been a winter playground of the international elite. Since December 1864, when a group of aristocratic British visitors checked in for the inaugural winter season at the Kulm Hotel, it has been synonymous with pleasure and privilege — a place with a dazzling social calendar of polo and horseracing on the frozen lake, where upper-crust Italian and British families rub fur-coated shoulders with oligarchs and tycoons.
Except this winter has been different. With the global jet set grounded by the pandemic, there is an unexpectedly egalitarian atmosphere around St Moritz’s immaculate pistes and heated pavements. And with the smart restaurants shut, skiers have taken to packing sandwiches from the village bakeries, and ordering takeaway Cokes from mountain huts to drink at slopeside picnics. “It has certainly become more affordable — you can bring a picnic and a Thermos for tea or glühwein,” said Giulia Bianchi, a business consultant up from Italy for a long weekend last month.
Roberto Giovagnoli, who owns several St Moritz restaurants, says the season overall has been “catastrophic”, with takings 60 per cent down across his businesses. But there has been a proliferation of kiosks offering takeaway food in the village, and down by the sailing club his own food trucks, offering pizza, burgers and poke bowls under the brand Plan B Kitchen, have done “not badly”.
The number of overnight stays was down 40 per cent in December and February, compared to the previous year, and down 60 per cent in January, but the potentially positive news is that Swiss visitors seem to have been taking the opportunity to reclaim their resort. The number of domestic visitors was up 20 per cent in February, according to the tourist board.
“They have been discovering their own country,” says Christoph Schlatter, chief executive of the Hotel Laudinella. “Where maybe they previously went to France or Austria, they thought: let’s try skiing in Switzerland.” He says that unlike in normal winters, he has hosted virtually no guests from outside Europe.
The cancellation of both the White Turf horseracing festival and the Snow Polo World Cup has also brought a change in visitor profile. “Typically people come from outside Europe for special events like the polo, but the Swiss are more interested in spending time with their families and in nature, enjoying the outdoors and fresh air, doing skiing or walking,” says Marijana Jakic, the resort’s brand manager. “It’s a completely different atmosphere.”
Without the polo arena, the lake has been freed for more accessible activities, with more space for cross-country skiing, skating and walking. Prices at many hotels have been reduced, to reflect the fact that they are not able to offer the full package of restaurants and spas.
Skiing in Covid times is a little different, but not all bad. The biggest early snowfalls in a decade created a solid snow base and, with fewer tourists around, renting skis is faster than sending an email. Wearing a mask on the lifts is compulsory, but it doubles as a face warmer for the descents. With indoor spaces closed, skiers are more dependent on the weather. “It’s hard on kids”, explains one French mother with an eight-year-old. “You can’t even sit on the terrace and have some warm soup, so you end up going home early.”
Ski schools and equipment shops have suffered badly, and in the season’s darkest hour about 400 guests and workers were forced into quarantine in January after infections were discovered at two of St Moritz’s smartest hotels, Badrutt’s Palace and the Kempinski Grand Hotel des Bains.
“I think we will look back at the pandemic and say we have suffered a lot, but because of the name and the St Moritz brand, compared to other places, for us it was not that bad,” says Jakic.
For Schlatter at the Hotel Laudinella, there is even reason for optimism. “Some guests loved it as they had an uncrowded vacation and no queues,” he says. “It has been a great chance to create new customers.”
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