Lift manufacturer Leitner has reported that the leading Austrian resort of Kitzbühel has ordered two new lifts for next winter – a 10 passenger cable car and another eight-seater chairlift.

The new Maierl gondola will be Austria’s first ten-seat gondola, and will replace a double chairlift and a drag lift on the route.
The 2.7km long lift will take users up more than 671 vertical metres and transport 2,400 passengers per hour. It will also offer heated seats.

The new Ocsalm chairlift will be 1.16km long and can carry up to 3,300 skiers per hour. Like the new Pengelstein eight-seater that the resort installed for this winter, the new lift will also have a pull down weather protection hood.

A massive expansion of Avoriaz ski resort in France gets underway this month that will create two totally new resort districts, ach with several new accommodation complexes.

Perhaps more exciting for guests staying in the existing resort, Avoriaz is also building a large new water park and a spectacular new lift to replace the cable car link between the resort and Morzine in the valley below. Much of the new development will be completed in time for the winter after next, in December 2011.

The two new resort districts are Crozats and Amara. Between them they will add nine new Maeva and Pierre and Vacances residences containing more than 40 new apartments.

Amara, which will open in two stages in December 2011 and December 2012, will also bring a new spa centre with swimming pool, Turkish bath and Jacuzzi, a day nursery and more restaurants, bars and shops.

Work is also due to begin in the next few days on a major new gondola which will replace the existing cable car link between Morzine and Avoriaz.

Finally, at the end of the summer season in September work is due to begin on ‘Aquariaz’ which the resort describes as, “the most innovative mountain water park facility with an atmosphere of natural tropical vegetation.” The new complex will cover 2000 square metres and will feature a wide river meandering through the centre of the building, a pool, indoor climbing wall, a ‘water playhouse’ and a sidewinder – a water filled superpipe. The facility which is being developed in partnership with Center Parcs will be very eco friendly and is scheduled to open in July 2012.

Italy’s Cervinia ski resort, which is connected by piste and lifts to Zermatt in Switzerland, has made a major investment of 11.5 million Euros in a state-of-the-art new chairlift.

The new Pancheron six-seat lift, which has all the latest safety features, departs from the top of Cretaz (close to the arrival station of the chairlift of the same name), and has an hourly uplift capacity of 3,000 people/hour.

The lift rises 512 vertical metres from 2,438m above-sea-level to 2,950m above-sea-level providing access to an expanded Cretaz sector and creates a new, even faster and more convenient, way to access the higher pistes of the ski area from the resort centre. In addition the ski area accessed by the new “Pancheron” chairlift allows off-piste skiers to access multiple lines throgh the powder snow in areas like Val Furggen.

The new lift gives great access to the Pancheron piste, regarded as one of the resort’s most spectacular with multiple changes in terrain as it descends in Cervinia, and makes a 1000m vertical descent possible.

As well as improving uplift on the mountain the new lift, which has been largely funded by the area’s local government which is the major shareholder in the ski resort, is expected to lead to a decrease in vehicle traffic in resort by making uplift more efficient.