Writing about ski holidays is the dream job for many journalists who love the mountains. There is nothing like putting on a pair of skis and embracing the feeling of freedom that it brings. One man has made it his life’s work to capture the magic of the mountains and bring the sport into the headlines. Rob Stewart is the Director of Ski Press, a media company that organises incredible press trips to some of the world’s most prestigious ski resorts. Rob’s little black book is one of the best in the industry and he is always happy to help journalists understand alpine sports. He is always keen to share his passion for the mountains with the journalists he meets.  Ski Luxe sits down with him to find out more about his fascinating career and his companies.

Freeride athlete to journalist

Rob is a former instructor and freeride skier who has worked in the winter sports industry skiing and visiting alpine destinations for over 30 years. His passion is for snowsports and writing is infectious. He is also a great presenter having interviewed ski personalities for The White Out Show and as a gear editor for InTheSnow. Not only this but he has also written for National Geographic Traveller and appeared on The BBC’s Travel Show.

It is his combined knowledge of the mountains and his talent as a writer that paved the way to his current position of running a company that helps brands and destinations with their media campaigns. Rob works with the promotion boards of Crans Montana, Les Gets, and Jungfrau Ski Region to name but a few. He also represents a range of skiing companies and brands and ambassadors. What endears Rob to all the people he works for is his infectious passion for all things skiing and the mountains. He always goes the extra mile to add a personal touch to all the events he hosts and to ensure that all the journalists he works with feel welcome.

Rob’s passion for the sport began when he was a teenager and he learned about a dry ski slope being built from around the corner from where he lived. “I went along, like many other British skiers and I loved it so much that I persuaded my parents to take me on a ski holiday. We did one or two holidays, but I carried on,” he said.

He developed a love of off-piste and backcountry skiing and even competed in freestyle and freeride events around the world, living in New Zealand and Verbier, where he was a head ski instructor for Springbok Ski Club in Queenstown.

He shares: “I was a ski instructor for ten years and I enjoyed writing about my experiences for fun. Then I came back to the UK and began working with a publishing company where I ended up running the sales and marketing and eventually the business. During this time, I carried on blogging about skiing and going on as many ski trips as I could before I decided to start doing it full-time.”

The launch of Ski Press

He launched Ski Press and later Mountain Press, which are both media companies specialising in alpine sports. “There’s a good handful of specialist companies and they are all doing a fantastic job. We do what we do, and hopefully, we do it well. The plan for the next season is to go on more trips, get travelling and provide people with good information. We want to make sure people know where to go. Our plan is to get people out enjoying the mountains this summer, whatever they want to do, be that cycling, spa or more. After covid, the whole industry is rebuilding. It does appear that people who like skiing are really going for it.

One of his clients is Crans Montana, which is rapidly developing into an upscale resort in Switzerland. This hosts the Knight Frank City Ski Championships, an annual event which combines skiing with networking and culminates in a giant slalom race, held on a world cup ski run in Crans Montana in Switzerland. There is an alpine forum business session in the evening with lots of activities and apres ski. The event is open to all levels of skiers. If you can ski confidently down a red run, you can enter, and you might be skiing against Olympians.

Rob rates Switzerland overall as a destination, saying: “You can’t go wrong with many ski resorts, but Switzerland is incredible, and they do everything so well and efficiently. I would also recommend Engelberg and the Jungfrau area where the railway system has transformed the area. I lived in Verbier for five seasons, so it has lots of memories.”

Change in the industry

Over the past 30 years Rob has seen a huge growth in the ski market mainly in terms of the standard of infrastructure and accommodation has risen, and it is much easier to travel to ski resorts than it was twenty-five years ago. For non-skiers, there is so much more to do.”

The Covid pandemic of 2022 was difficult for the industry but he saw an opportunity to pivot and as well as his main company Ski Press, Rob launched Mountain Press as a separate brand due to the growth in summer tourism in the Alps. He shared. “When covid came along some of the destinations we work with had their best-ever summer seasons. So many people found out how amazing it was. You can cycle, swim or chill out. There’s lots of space. People love beaches, but if you want space and want to get away from everything. As more activities are available in the summer as more people visit, more money flows in and this means more facilities, so it starts to grow.”

Being the keen skier he was, Rob was itching to get on the slopes after the pandemic. “Putting skis on my feet after not doing it for two years felt fantastic. It was so enjoyable to be skiing again, whether that was on a blue run or a crazy steep north face with a 1,000 feet vertical drop.

“I am just an old skier who still loves it,” he said.

At the start of the year, Rob had already visited Switzerland, Austria,  Les Gets and North Macedonia where he went cat skiing in the Shah mountains. He is regularly invited out to destinations as a journalist and as a ski tester.

“I love testing ski gear,” he shared. “I am lucky to get paid for skiing and testing equipment. Every run is different with a new pair of skis. It can be challenging but I always say you need a team of people ski testing so everyone can input.

“Fashion is a huge part of skiing. Don’t skimp on ski clothing equipment. If you invest in the good stuff, you won’t get cold or wet. There are brands out there like Maier Sports who provide good quality clothing which is also sustainable.”

What is luxury?

Rob sees the luxury market as a key area that will continue to grow as many of the people who gravitate towards skiing want to spend money on ski holidays and experience good food. Crans Montana appeals to the five-star demographic. It is the sort of place where you can eat in Michelin-starred restaurants. I think most ski resorts have always been luxurious because the middle and the lower range of accommodation options are always pushing higher which pushes the higher-end range of accommodation upwards.

A ski holiday can be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. Luxury also means convenience, service, great food and the best thing about skiing is the memories. Rob has spent many winters in Verbier and Engelberg with some of best skiers in the world, and time on the slopes with celebrities and those are experiences that money cannot buy.

Rob shares: “I competed for a while, and I had a few successes in freeride skiing and mogul skiing. As such I have plenty of memories of riding in helicopters and getting dropped on top of mountains.  Those memories are fantastic. At the same time skiing with my daughter from the top of the mountain to the bottom and one, you can’t be that.”

“For me skiing is about being on a mountain and looking at those views. There’s nothing really like that. I remember the first time I went skiing as a young teenager in the Alps. I wasn’t a very good skier but the feeling of doing that then was just as exhilarating. The mountains are an incredible environment to be in whether you ski or not. It’s the whole package of being out there, the culture, the atmosphere, the fresh air, the sunshine in the winter and just the feeling of sliding down a mountain, whatever level you might be. Of course, skiing isn’t without its risks. That would be stupid to say it’s completely risk-free but if you look at other sports, it’s relatively safe. As a ski instructor for 10 years, I had to deal with some accidents. And about being cold, if you’ve got a decent ski jacket and decent pair of gloves you are set.”

“Resorts change and as you grow older, your own needs and wants evolve as well. Whilst 20 years ago, partying hard in a certain ski resort was my goal, today I might prefer being a little bit more mellow with my family in another ski resort. I tend to stay away from some of the big ski resorts in peak seasons but in the quieter times, they are fantastic.

“I’ve been to Georgia, which was to me a luxury experience enjoying skiing, eating nice food and drinking Georgian wine. They have got some brilliant skiing and incredible hotels. The wine is wonderful, the food is delicious, and the people are friendly.”

Rob also loves Apres Ski and is very musical, when he is not on the slopes you will see him playing the drums in his band Stripped Down Blues. He is also known to support Apres bands at the Snow Show where he played with the Squid Lips band based in Morzine and Les Gets with Chemmy Alcott on the vocals.

Bringing more people into the sport

Rob foresees the biggest challenge is getting new blood into the industry and inspiring them to choose more ski holidays. “The people who go skiing love it, they go every year,” he said. “We put together press trips for journalists to experience the resorts so they can write about them properly,” said Rob. “A lot of effort goes into putting those trips together.

“Any specialist media company, if they know about skiing, knows that it is different from going on a holiday to Greece or Spain. Skiing is the focus of what we do and getting people into the sport but once they do get into it, they don’t stop.”

Getting younger people into the sport is important and it is accessible to everyone. Charities such as Snowcamp do an incredible job bringing people into the sport that would never have had the chance to get into skiing.

There are many icons to look up to as well, says Rob. Watching the Winter Olympics is a huge inspiration for grassroots skiers from very ordinary backgrounds. Dave Ryding just happened to have a dry ski slope around the corner from him and he is now one of the most successful ski racers in the world, alone in Britain. However, he worked incredibly hard to get there. Rob recently interviewed him for In The Snow Magazine.

Dave’s story is inspirational and it would be nice to see more diversity in the ski world and more younger people. Snow Camp is doing a brilliant job with young people who might never be able to access skiing.”

However, price is an issue for many young people and Rob recognises that there’s no way of getting around that. “You could probably go on a package holiday to the beach, and it was for less than you could ever do a ski holiday but there are organisations in the French Alps. UCPA runs ski trips.  It is a not-for-profit organisation, and you can pay around £700 pounds per person for a week, all-inclusive, three meals a day, ski pass ski lessons, ski high commendation, everything, for a week skiing in the French Alps. If you really wanted to do it, most people could say right, this is the goal of my life. I’m going to make that work.”

Rob is looking forward to continuing to help skiing hit the headlines. His core mission is to be known as the person to come to for anything to do with mountains, winter or summer. “I hope that Ski Press and Mountain Press can be that company that people trust. Hopefully, we are there already but if we can continue doing that in the future, I will be happy.”

He added: “There are some fantastic ski destinations out there. We are also working with Jungfrau and Les Gets. It would be nice to work with destinations outside of Europe. We like working with anyone that has a product with what skiers want to go to.”

See some of Rob’s interviews with the stars of skiing here.