Planning a vacation in Europe’s largest ski destination can be overwhelming.
Courchevel is a massive resort in the French Alps, nestled in the Tarentaise Valley. It’s part of Les Trois Vallees, the world’s largest interconnected ski area with seven resorts. From finding the perfect activities for your family ski trip to booking the perfect ski chalet, there are endless options. So to filter through it all, Eliot Prince created Courchevel.VIP as a go-to resource.
As a former freelance writer for See Courchevel, he once covered snow reports and weather alerts for ski goers but felt visitors needed a sharper, more elegant, guide to the region. He created the online guide specifically for VIPs, or those who want to bask in some luxury experiences in between unforgettable ski runs. Whether you want to book a chalet, arrive by helicopter or private jet, dine at a local Michelin restaurant or reserve a private chef, the dynamic website lists thorough apres-ski guides. But at the end of the day, Prince knows his content must go above and beyond for avid skiers. That’s why he created an in-depth guide for skiing in the Courchevel area. Here, he shares what it took to design his own tourism website for one of the most luxurious ski destinations in the world.
What is the mission of your website?
Courchevel.VIP is an in-depth guide to the ski resort of Courchevel at its finest. The aim is simple: we aim to show off the best of the resorts with long-from content, stunning photography, reviews, video, and much more. The URL Courchevel.VIP was the perfect fit for our business. So much so that it has become the name of the whole brand!
What was the biggest obstacle you faced as the publisher of a tourism website?
Our biggest obstacle was certainly Covid-19. It slowed the progress due to a lack of ski season and tourism. Adding to this, we have a very small budget and all the work is done by myself and another director. However, it gave us plenty of time to quietly build the business. It took a little more than two years to work on creating stunning content and building a brand to go with it. And the hard work is yielding results. We've grown to nearly 30,000 page views a month in the middle of winter (and this is just the start.) With this strong website traffic, businesses are now keen to advertise and offer their services through our platform
Describe a moment you are most proud of in your entrepreneurial journey.
To be honest, we're always looking forward to the next goal and growth period. But when we made our first sale from a business wanting to advertise on the platform, that was the moment I knew we had something. That told me that someone in the real world values what we've created.
Why did you choose .vip as your web domain?
We bought the domain as we couldn't believe no one else was using it. Then we worked out how to build a business around that idea. What's cool is that the domain name gives us credibility, a clear message, and something to build a brand around. You kind of know what you are getting when you see the name Courchevel.VIP web address.
What advice do you have for other aspiring entrepreneurs?
Don't doubt that you can make money from writing about your passion or expertise. Remember that you're good at what you do and if you are solving a problem then people will be willing to pay for it.