Figure of the month: 35.2

It’s the same every year: ski season joy is dampened by the seemingly relentless rise in the cost of ski day passes. According to holidu.de, a day pass currently costs up to €95 in the Zermatt ski resort in Switzerland, while in popular ski resorts in Germany and Austria, tickets are up to €76, a significant increase from last season. In the eleven largest Austrian ski resorts, day pass prices are up 6 per cent year on year, as the recent ‘In gold we trust’ special reports.

Gold/ski pass ratio: analysing gold purchasing power since 1999

The gold price performance compared to the price of Austrian ski day passes since the 1990/91 season shows that the ski pass prices have risen more significantly than overall European inflation. While consumer prices more than doubled on average over the last 34 years, prices for ski passes have more than tripled. The gold/ski ticket ratio compares this, far above-average, price development with the yearly performance of gold, thus illustrating how well the precious metal really fulfils its function as a store of value.

In gold, a ski ticket costs 65 per cent less today than it did 34 years ago

The euro price for a day ski ticket has seen a 26 per cent rise over the last three years alone. If you were to pay in gold, the ticket would, however, be cheaper than ever. In other words, an ounce of gold today buys more day tickets than ever before. In the current ski season, one ounce of gold would buy 35.2 day tickets. In the 1990/1991 season, it would have bought just twelve, while in the 2023/2024 season, it would have been 27, showcasing last year’s strong gold rally. Looking back at the gold/ski ticket ratios for the past 35 years, we see the purchasing power of gold increasing in the long term, but not in a linear way. There were, in fact, years when one ounce of gold would have bought significantly fewer ski tickets than the year before.