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Sport and leisure industry in Haute-Savoie

A leading industry...

The Alps immediately evoke the idea of mountains and winter sports. Winter (above all) and summer (increasingly so). While there is no need to repeat here the illustrious past of the département of Haute-Savoie, home of the Winter Olympic Games of 1924 in Chamonix, fewer people are aware of the fact that paragliding and water skiing were also born here. And that at the beginning of the 2000s, speed riding emerged here for the first time … This is why so many companies in this sector have set up their headquarters, production site or R&D base in Rhône-Alpes.

According to the figures provided by the Rhône-Alpes Sport/Loisirs/Montagne cluster (CIM and Sportaltec), the region accommodates 80% of the French potential in the mountain-related leisure and outdoor industries. As a strong focus of this Rhône-Alpes dynamism, the Sillon Alpin [Geneva, Annecy, Chambery, Grenoble] stretching between Grenoble and Geneva, crossing the Isère, Savoie and Haute-Savoie, groups together most of this specialist industry. Haute-Savoie has been going like a train with names inseparable from the local history, to which have been added numerous innovative SMEs and SMIs who have moved there to absorb all the new trends. However, with winters short of snow, the economic crisis and competition for the countries of Asia have badly shaken the manufacturers in this sector. To preserve the existing activity and to give a new impetus to the fabric of sports – leisure – mountain activities in Rhône-Alpes, the development of synergies and exchanges of expertise is on the agenda: that are liable to attract some grey matter to the situation. But this grey matter alone will not be enough. Those involved in the sector have to face up to a major issue: uniting in order to train a qualified workforce and to develop excellence in the field of new technologies and eco-innovations.

80 is the approximate number of companies located in Haute-Savoie. These generate 2000 direct or indirect jobs (Azimut innovation, Burton snowboard, Créations Fusalp, Duret Skis, Dynastar, Eider, Heelys, K2 skis, Mavic, Millet, Nic Impex, Nordica, Norrona, Oakley, Orage, Patagonia, Quechua, Salomon, Scott, Sigmax, Simond, Tecnica, The North Face, TSL...).