The ski season lasted for more than eight months: favorable weather conditions and snowfalls made it possible to prepare and open pistes for skiing already in early November. In spring and autumn, slopes of the resort were the base for training Russian athletes: all-Russian mountain ski competitions took place there, training camps of regional and combined teams of Russia in winter sports were held. The resort received more than 450 athletes from all over the country, who could have trainings and qualification runs in Gara-Bashi - Mir piste and in the ski zone located higher, where a T-bar lift was installed for camps.
According to sociological surveys held by Northern Caucasus Resorts JSC on the site of Elbrus ATRC last winter, the bulk of the tourist flow are holiday makers from the Krasnodar territory, Saint-Petersburg, the Rostov region and Stavropol territory. More than half of the guests (57%) are residents of Moscow and the Moscow region. Over 55% of tourists come for recreation with their friends, a third - with their families. Over 61% respondents noted that it was not their first time at the resort, 63% people in the survey told that they wanted to come back next winter.
Inter alia, there was growth of the foreign tourist flow to the resort and to the region as a whole. Murat Shogentsukov, the Minister of Resorts and Tourism of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, noted that foreign guests visited the region both individually and in groups. ‘In recent times, the popularity of Kabardino-Balkar has been growing in the Asia region. In 2014 to 2017, about 70 thousand foreign nationals from 72 countries of the world visited us, and we are ready to offer safe and comfortable rest to them, like to Russians,’ he told.
‘Development of ski infrastructure at Elbrus resort is a priority for our company, not just from the point of view of attracting tourists from Russia and foreign countries, but also within creation of a professional base there for training of athletes in mountain ski sports,’ Khasan Timizhev, Director General of NCR JSC, commented. ‘In 2018-2021, development of mountain ski region near the existing skiing zones and in the Northern direction is planned. In particular, three ropeways with throughput of about 5500 people per hour and about 10.5 km of pistes shall be built,’ he clarified. Power supply networks for mountain ski infrastructure shall be built, a parking lot for 800 vehicles shall be equipped, landscaping of the central part of Azau meadow shall be performed.