Bergbahnen Destination Gstaad AG is changing its tariff network: This winter it will be part of the Top4 subscription for the last time from summer 2025 the company will participate in the Magic Pass, which now includes 80 ski areas.
JOCELYNE PAGE
The people responsible at the Destination Bergbahnen Gstaad AG (BDG) announced measures after the difficult last season (we reported), and now a fundamental decision is ready: The company is changing its tariff association by leaving the Top4 offer and enter the Magic Pass – this. from the summer of 2025. A step to, on the one hand, welcome more day tourists again, and on the other, to be able to offer “an attractive, new, increased offer” to the locals, says Matthias In -Albon, managing director of BDG. , to this newspaper. «The Magic Pass has developed very positively in recent years and is growing a lot. Change makes sense from different perspectives, for example geographically. We are surrounded by Magic Pass ski areas and Glacier 3000 is also included in this tariff network. The region benefits from being linked to this ski area again under the same donation.” The tariff association is also happy, as stated by Pierre Besson, President of the Magical Mountains Cooperative, in a press release: “We are happy about this collaboration, which strengthens our position as the main provider of leisure activities in the mountains.”
The last season for the top 4 download
What does it look like on the legal side? Can the Top4 tariff association be left overnight? “Everything will remain as usual for this winter. The change will not happen this winter season, but the summer season of 2025. We are in an annual contract, and it will end in time,” explains Matthias In-Albon. The Top4 offer worked very well when it was introduced at 666 francs and the region benefited greatly. “With the last price increases, an uneven development occurred: The price increases resulted in fewer sales, although sales in the Top4 remained stable overall, but our region lost a disproportionate share of the distribution key,” explains In- Alban. With a good winter, the BDG recorded around 160,000 first entries through the Top4 last winter there were just over 100,000. In addition, the price of the subscription has risen continuously over the years and the offer is the same: the destinations Gstaad, Adelboden-Lenk, Meiringen-Hasliberg and Jungfrau for today 850 francs.
«By changing to the Magic Pass, we can offer real added value to our customers and at a more attractive rate. “But you can’t directly compare the two products because they have a completely different business model behind them,” explains In-Albon. The Magic Pass costs around 400 francs in advance and includes 80 ski areas in the cantons of Bern, Friborg, Vaud, Valais, Neuchatel and Lucerne as well as six French and two Italian ski areas. And as Magic Pass writes in a press release, interest in their offer is growing: 192,000 subscriptions have already been sold for this winter – not including the Gstaad destination yet – which represents a ten percent increase in comparison with the previous year.
Focus on summer development
The new tariff subscription also includes 37 summer destinations, including BDG. “Our catalog of deals is also aimed at improving the summer season. So we expect that more and more day and holiday guests will stay in our region during the summer months through the Magic Pass,” explains Matthias In-Albon. It is an incentive to continue to invest in mountain staging and summer offers. The BDG hopes that this donation will ensure that more families will want to explore the holiday region of Gstaad. “The Magic Pass survey shows that most subscribers are between 30 and 40 years old,” says In-Albon.
Positive feedback from Tourism and Glacier 3000
News of mountain railways is attracting interest from tourism and competitors. Flurin Riedi, director of tourism at Gstaad Saanenland Tourism, says: “I see the Magic Pass as a great opportunity for our region. In particular, the summer validity and the fact that Glacier 3000 is also included in the Magic Pass make the subscription very attractive, especially for the locals.” Does Glacier 3000 consider this change positive as well? “We are very happy that we can again offer a donation to the Saanenland and its local people that includes the two mountain railways,” says Marcel Bach, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Gstaad 3000 AG, which owns the Glacier 3000, when asked . Efforts have been underway to reconnect the two ski areas in this way for several years. “Due to the geographical location of the BDG, they are focused more on western Switzerland than the eastern Bernese Oberland, which is why it makes sense to go into the Magic Pass,” says Bach.
Also changes to “Dynamic Pricing”
By joining the new tariff association, the BDG is also changing part of the “Dynamic Pricing” system: a pricing model where ticket prices are adjusted depending on demand, season, weather and other factors to optimize revenue. This system no longer applies to day tickets. How much did the BDG benefit from this? “It gave us about ten percent more revenue,” explains In-Albon. The BDG system handled a million prize combinations. Price sensitive families who plan their holidays in advance would benefit from this offer. The BDG, in turn, benefited from spontaneous guests wanting to hit the slopes, especially when the weather was nice, resulting in higher daily prices. “Multi-day tickets were mostly bought in advance. Few day tickets were sold in advance. Due to this fact and the main distribution mechanism of the Magic Pass, the price of the day ticket becomes the same again and the multi-day tickets remain dynamic,” says Matthias In-Albon.