1. Location

2. History
    Tarentaise Valley Skiing  1992 Winter Olympics   2019 Fire    2023 Alpine Ski World Championships  

3. Resort

4. Airport

5. Sister cities

6. References

7. External links

Courchevel is a French Alps ski resort. It is a part of Les Trois Vallées, the largest linked ski areas in the world. Courchevel also refers to the towns of Courchevel 1300 (Le Praz), Courchevel 1550, Courchevel 1650 (Moriond), and Courchevel 1850, which are named for their altitudes in metres. The resort centre of Courchevel is at 1,747 metres (5,732 ft).^[1] The somewhat misleading name Courchevel 1850 was chosen for marketing reasons to compete with arch rival Val d'Isère. It is the Jardin Alpin area of Courchevel 1850 (not the centre) which is actually located at 1,850 metres (6,070 ft).

Location

Courchevel used to be part of the commune of Saint-Bon-Tarentaise, but in 2017 that was merged with La Perrière into the new commune of Courchevel. In spite of the name, the commune's administrative offices are not located in Courchevel, but still in the nearby village of Saint-Bon-Tarentaise. Courchevel is in the Tarentaise Valley, Savoie département, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region.

History

The original resort was planned during World War II with a study in 1942 by the Vichy regime and in a doctorate by the town planner Laurent Chappis. Chappis was a natural choice to direct the development of the resort in the immediate post war years. Courchevel 1850 was significant, as it was the first resort in France to be constructed from scratch, rather than based around an existing village.

Tarentaise Valley Skiing

Within the Tarentaise Valley you find the biggest concentration of world-class ski resorts in the world. Most well known neighbour systems are Paradiski (Les Arcs, La Plagne) and Espace Killy (Val d'Isère and Tignes). A weekly lift ticket in Courchevel/Les Trois Vallées gives you a choice to ski one day in each of the other two systems mentioned. There were once plans to interlink all systems and resorts to create the - by far - largest ski area in the world. However that vision was ended with the creation of the Vanoise National Park.

1992 Winter Olympics

The Courchevel valley also includes the town of La Tania, built as competitors accommodation for the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville. Le Praz hosted the Olympic ski jumping and Nordic combined competitions for those games took place at Tremplin du Praz in Le Praz.^[2] There was a ski Jump in Courchevel 1850 on the snowfront however it was removed recently due to safety precautions.

2019 Fire

Before dawn on January 20th 2019, a fire broke out in one of the buildings in the hamlet of Courchevel 1850, which houses seasonal workers of the resort, killing two and injuring at least 22. A local French newspaper reported that 130 firefighters were on the scene.^[3][4]

2023 Alpine Ski World Championships

In May 2018, Courchevel was named a joint host of the 2023 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships with Méribel.^[5] It will be the first time since 2009 that France has hosted the FIS World Championships, when they took place in Val d'Isère. Races in Courchevel will finish in Courchevel Le Praz. A new super-leisure centre called L'Alpinium is under construction in Le Praz and will improve connections to Courchevel 1850 and provide more parking.^[6]

Resort

Courchevel is the most western resort of the Three Valleys, the biggest connected ski area in the world. It is renowned for its excellent lift system which is virtually queue free, even at the busiest of times.^[7]

Although Courchevel consists of four satellite villages — Courchevel Le Praz, Courchevel 1550, Courchevel 1650 and Courchevel 1850 — it is most famous for its highest resort, the exclusive village of Courchevel 1850. Sometimes referred to as St. Tropez of winter sports, it attracts almost only a select clientele of VIPs, wealthy people and royal families, including Prince William and Kate Middleton,^[8] the Beckhams,^[9] Christina Aguilera,^[10] Geri Halliwell,^[11] Lionel Richie,^[12] the Saudi royal family,^[13] Peter Andre,^[14] Robbie Williams, Roman Abramovich, George Clooney, Giorgio Armani, American lawyer Richard Golomb and the King of Morocco and many others.

In the 2011-2012 season Courchevel rebranded, changing the names of each of the four villages in a move away from the association with altitude. Courchevel 1850 is now known simply as Courchevel, Courchevel 1650 has been renamed Courchevel Moriond; Courchevel 1550 is now called Courchevel Village and Courchevel 1330, aka Le Praz, has been renamed Courchevel Le Praz.^[15]

Courchevel has 11 luxury hotels with a 5-star ranking. In 2011 France introduced a very prestigious 6th star ranking for hotels, named "palaces". The palace 6th star ranking is only awarded to the most prestigious, exclusive and luxurious hotels in France. No more than eight hotels in France have received this rating. Two of those eight hotels are in Courchevel tree-lined Jardin Alpin area.^[16] No other ski resorts in France have hotels with the palace ranking.

Courchevel is also known for its fine dining. It's the ski resort with the most Michelin starred restaurants. A total of seven restaurants share 11 Michelin stars, including four restaurants that have been awarded two Michelin stars, including Le Chabichou.^[17] It also hosts a variety of luxury shops including Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Valentino, Loro Piana, Prada, Cartier, Fendi, Dior and Chanel.

The large majority of Courchevel's visitors are of Russian nationality (source Courchevel Tourist Agency), in fact the resort is known for the wealthy Russian elite who flock to the resort during New Year and Russian Orthodox Christmas which is celebrated on 7 January, two weeks later than in Western Europe. Because of this, Courchevel's name has become synonymous with "winter playground of the super rich" in Russia.^[18] As a result, the first two weeks of January are high season weeks in Courchevel.

Courchevel is known to be an expensive resort. One of the reasons for this are the high prices of residential and commercial property.

Courchevel has one of the largest bases for ski instructors and other seasonal workers due to the size of the three valleys area. Courchevel's couloirs are renowned as some of the most difficult black runs in the world.

Courchevel's sister city is Park City, Utah in the United States, and it has a red-graded ski piste named "Park City".

For the winter season of 2014–2015, a six pack is due to replace the adjacent Aiguille du Fruit and Gravelles chairs at Prameruel between 1650 & 1850. The ancient Foret gondola from Le Praz is to also be replaced with a six pack.^[19]

Airport

Courchevel's airport ({{coord|45.397395|6.634884|format=dms|type:airport|display=inline}}) also has a certain degree of infamy in aviation as having a very short and steeply sloped runway, with a length of {{convert|525|m|ft}} and a gradient of 18.5%. The airport has a dangerous approach through deep valleys, which can only be performed by specially certified pilots. On landing there is no go-around procedure, as most of the world's airports have; there is merely a very steep hill which has seen a few accidents since the airport first opened. Larger propeller aircraft such as the Twin Otter and Dash 7 (carrying up to 50 people) have been regular users of the airport over the years, but have since been phased out of use and smaller Cessnas and helicopters are often seen sitting on the tarmac nowadays.

The History Channel program Most Extreme Airports, ranks it as the 7th most dangerous airport in the world.^[20]

Sister cities

• {{flagicon|USA}} Park City, United States

References

External links

• Official site of Courchevel Tourism Office
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20090207183609/http://www.les3vallees.com/en/home-page.1.l2/ Official site of Les 3 Vallees]
• Cycling up to Courchevel-Altiport: data, profile, map, photos and description

• Empirical Bayes estimate
• Empirical Bayes estimates
• Empirical Bayes estimator
• Empirical Bayes estimators
• Empirical Bayes method
• Empirical Bayes methods
• Empirical decision theory
• Empirical distribution function
• Empirical equation
• Empirical evidence
• Empirical formula
• Empirical knowledge
• Empirical law
• Empirically
• Empirical mean
• Empirical method
• Empirical methods
• Empirical orthogonal functions
• Empirical relationship
• Empirical research
• Empirical risk minimization
• Empirical science
• Empirical studies
• Empirical validation
• Empiricism