One ounce of gold would have paid for five weeks’ worth of day passes during last year’s ski season in Austria. This season, it would cover nearly two weeks more, a full 48 day tickets. As it does every year without fail, the price for ski passes has also increased. And as always, the price hike is significantly above inflation, although the 4.8 percent increase is almost moderate compared to 6 percent in 2024 and 10.2 percent in 2023. Overall, ski pass prices have gone up a good 22 percent over the last three years.
Ski pass/gold ratio at 35-year low
As in previous years, the recently published ‘In Gold we Trust’ special calculated the ratio of the gold price to the ski pass price for the current ski season in the eleven largest Austrian ski resorts and compared it with those of the last 35 years. Thanks to the long-lasting price rally of the precious metal, gold investors can buy around 48 day passes for their favorite ski resort for one ounce of gold this winter. This significantly exceeds the record of 35 days set in the previous ski season. In terms of their long-term trend and converted into gold, day tickets costs almost 70 per cent less this year than in the 1990/91 ski season, when the ski pass/gold ratio was calculated for the first time.
Gold proves its worth as long-term store of value
In the 35 years since 1990, the gold price has dropped just nine times from one ski season to the next and risen 26 times, mostly to significantly higher levels than the respective inflation rate. The ski pass/gold ratio is an excellent indicator of the effectiveness of gold as an inflation hedge. Day ticket prices have consistently risen more sharply than the inflation rate in the Eurozone.