Destination Montagnes · 2027

Agoris analysis · updated October 2026

Key takeaways

• Destination Montagnes is the B2B workshop for French mountain tourism: two days of pre-scheduled 20-minute appointments between professionals from the mountain ranges (resorts, ski areas, accommodation providers, tourist offices, ground handlers, transport operators) and international tour operators selected by the organiser.
• Organiser: Atout France, the French tourism development agency. The show was long known as Grand Ski, then as Destination Montagnes - Grand Ski, before taking its current name once its scope widened from skiing alone to four-season mountain tourism.
• Next edition: the 36th, on Tuesday 19 and Wednesday 20 January 2027 in Grenoble. Atout France selected the joint bid from Grenoble Alpes and Isère for the 2025, 2026 and 2027 editions, after four three-year cycles in Chambéry.
• Results of the last edition (2026, 35th): 217 exhibiting French companies, 407 tour operators from 51 countries and 10,127 business appointments scheduled by the close of appointment bookings.
• This is not a conventional exhibition: there is no open visitor access. Exhibitors and visitors are professionals registered in advance, with tour operators selected by Atout France's offices in their respective countries.
• The day before the show, the Rencontres de Destination Montagnes bring together an afternoon of discussions on the industry's challenges, and éductours (educational tours) take tour operators to the resorts.

Who exhibits

Typical profile

Exhibiting is reserved for French mountain tourism professionals. The breakdown of exhibiting companies by activity, published by the organiser based on the 2025 edition, gives a sense of the line-up: accommodation and catering 43%, resorts and ski lifts 39%, services and activities 10%, transport 6%, ground handling agencies 2%.

The geography of exhibitors is just as telling: Northern Alps 69.5%, operators present across all French mountain ranges 14.5%, Southern Alps 11%, Pyrenees 5%. The Jura, Vosges and Massif Central remain more occasional presences, as the 2026 edition's online directory did not publish a list for these three ranges.

On the visitor side, the audience is made up of tour operators, travel agencies and ground handling agencies. The show is not open to the public.

Notable exhibitors

The full list of exhibiting companies is published and kept up to date by the organiser on the official website's exhibitors page, sorted by mountain range and department. For the 2026 edition, it included both major destinations (Courchevel, Méribel, Val d'Isère, Val Thorens, Chamonix Mont-Blanc Valley, La Plagne, Serre Chevalier, Saint-Lary, Cauterets) and national accommodation groups (Club Med, Pierre & Vacances, Belambra Clubs, Odalys Vacances, MGM, CGH Résidences & Spas), ski industry players (ESF, Intersport Rent, Skiset, Sport 2000) and transport operators (Air France, VINCI Airports, Altibus Transdev). Regional and departmental tourist boards group together some of their members there, from Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Tourisme to Agence des Pyrénées.

Quality of the audience

This is the format's strong point. Atout France selects the invited tour operators each year and checks their genuine activity in mountain tourism distribution. The result shows in the ratio: 407 tour operators for 217 exhibitors in 2026, close to two buyers per exhibitor, and 10,127 appointments scheduled before the doors even opened.

The origin of these buyers remains very European: 81% Europe, 8% Asia-Pacific and Africa, 6% Middle East, 5% Americas, according to the breakdown published by the organiser for the 2025 edition. That year, out of 426 tour operators, 347 came from Europe, including 84 from France, with British (71) and Dutch (36) delegations well ahead of the rest. On long-haul routes, the largest contingents were Indian, Brazilian, Israeli, American and Emirati.

The organiser reports an exhibitor satisfaction rate of 96% for the 2025 edition and 98% for 2024.

Events & community

Programme

The schedule is stable from one edition to the next. The Rencontres de Destination Montagnes open the sequence the day before the show, in the early afternoon: a format of round tables and workshops reserved for French professionals, which brought together 200 elected officials, technicians and professionals in 2026 around the paradoxes of mountain tourism amid the transition and the conditions for effective investment in resorts.

The two days of the show then run at a busy pace: opening at 9am, pre-scheduled 20-minute appointments throughout the day, a single lunch sitting, closing at 6pm on the first day and 5pm on the second. An official evening event is organised on the first night at the invitation of the host destination: the Patinoire de Grenoble in 2025, Le Summum in 2026.

Startup area and éductours

Atout France sets aside a space for young tourism tech companies, in partnership with France Tourisme Tech and Cluster Montagne: four solutions in 2026 (E-Motion, La Trace, Oh My Season, Skaping), six in 2025.

Around the show, partner resorts and destinations host tour operators on discovery trips (éductours). In 2026, 21 resorts and destinations mobilised to host 148 international tour operators, against 159 in 2025 for an equivalent number of host destinations. For an exhibitor, securing an éductour is a visibility lever at least as powerful as the stand itself.

Community & networks

The show is organised by Atout France in partnership with Air France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Tourisme, Isère Attractivité, Agence Grenoble Alpes, France Montagnes, Genève Aéroport and VINCI Airports. Skiset is the sponsor. The bid that brought the event to Grenoble was jointly carried by Isère Attractivité and Agence Grenoble Alpes.

Grenoble also hosts, at the same exhibition centre, Mountain Planet, the global gathering for mountain development, which addresses the technical, upstream side of the industry: Destination Montagnes sells the destination, Mountain Planet equips the resort. On the generalist tourism distribution side, IFTM remains the reference event in Paris in the autumn.

On site: what you need to know

For access and parking, see the venue page: Alpexpo Grenoble. The 2026 edition was held in Hall 89, 2 avenue d'Innsbruck, 38100 Grenoble.

Access by public transport is direct: from Grenoble train station, take tram A towards Échirolles l'Étoile, stop Pôle Sud - Alpexpo. The Chrono 3 bus line also serves the Alpexpo stop. By car, access is via the southern ring road, exit 6 Alpexpo. A car park is located within the exhibition centre grounds and was made available free of charge to participants in 2026.

By train, Grenoble is under 3 hours from Paris by TGV, 1h15 from Lyon Part-Dieu and 2h45 from Marseille. By air, Grenoble-Isère airport (GNB) is 30 minutes away, Lyon Saint-Exupéry 50 minutes and Geneva 1h30. Air France, the official carrier, offers partner rates to Atout France members and registered participants.

For accommodation as for international transport, the organiser refers participants to the Atout France office in their own country, a list of which is published on the contacts page of the official website.

How much it costs to exhibit

Preparing your visit

For the exhibitor

• Register early: exhibitor registrations close several weeks before the event, and the number of French companies selected has stood at around 220 for several editions.
• Take care with your listing in the online directory: this is what tour operators use to choose their appointments. The Flocon Vert, Famille Plus and Tourisme & Handicap labels are flagged there and serve as a filter for some buyers.
• Don't wait for opening day to fill your schedule: exhibitors can request meetings with tour operators, and matching is done by shared criteria.
• Consider hosting or co-funding an éductour with your destination: this is the format that turns a 20-minute appointment into a catalogue listing.
• Prepare a four-season offer. The positioning displayed by the organiser covers summer, hiking, cycling and wellbeing just as much as skiing.

For the decision-making visitor

• Go through the Atout France office in your country: this is the single entry point for registration, selection and questions on transport and accommodation. For the 2026 edition, visitor registration closed on 5 December 2025.
• Block out at least three to four days: arrival the day before, two full days of appointments, departure the following morning, not counting the éductour.
• Build your schedule in advance on the platform: the 20-minute slots fill up before opening and the show leaves almost no room for browsing.
• Plan for the tram rather than a car: a tram pass is made available to participating tour operators.

Policy & CSR initiatives

The organiser's commitments are documented, operational and long-standing, which sets them apart from mere window-dressing. Since 2016, the show has used wooden stands reused from one edition to the next, built by the company Déplacer les montagnes. Much of the furniture is rented, carpeting has been removed from common areas, water fountains replace individual bottles, and catering relies on seasonal produce from short supply chains.

On mobility, most of the transfers organised for international buyers run by tram, Grenoble having a direct network between city-centre hotels and the exhibition hall. The transport operators running the links from Lyon and Geneva airports are selected on environmental criteria, including the Objectif CO2 charter. A carbon footprint assessment of the event was carried out again in 2025, to identify scope for improvement in future editions.

The social dimension runs through the use of establishments and services supporting people with disabilities in employment (ESAT): the badge lanyards and official bags given to international buyers are produced by Confection française Solidaire ESAT. In 2025, the Tourisme et Avenir association in Annecy had its students help with reception duties.

The show also serves as a showcase for three labels highlighted on site and in the online directory: Flocon Vert, run by the Mountain Riders association, a partner of Atout France since 2019 and host of a sustainable tourism area at the show, with 30 labelled destinations present in 2026; Famille Plus, with 57 labelled resorts and industry members in 2026; and Tourisme & Handicap, whose operational management has been handled by Atout France since the 2024 reform of national tourism labels.

The choice of Grenoble, European Green Capital 2022, was explicitly driven by this positioning, with the organiser citing the environmental commitment of host venues and partner hotels as a selection criterion.

How the trade show has evolved

Trajectory analysis

Volumes are remarkably stable: between 217 and 223 exhibiting companies and between 407 and 438 tour operators over the last three editions, with the number of scheduled appointments staying above 10,000 every year. The slight dip seen between 2024 and 2026 owes more to a deliberate cap than to any loss of interest: the format relies on buyer selection and on an appointment capacity limited by the show's duration.

The two real shifts lie elsewhere. The first is the move from skiing towards four-season mountain tourism, reflected in the gradual dropping of the Grand Ski name and the systematic promotion of summer offerings, cycling, hiking and wellbeing. The second is the horizon of the 2030 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in the French Alps, which the 2026 press kit places explicitly at the centre of discussions: an area stretching from Haute-Savoie to Alpes-Maritimes stands to gain exceptional international visibility, and tour operators come to Grenoble looking for the products that will capture this demand.

One point to watch for anyone planning further ahead: the Grenoble cycle runs across the 2025, 2026 and 2027 editions. The 2027 edition is therefore the last of the announced cycle, and the host destination for subsequent editions was not known at the time of writing.

Unless otherwise stated, all factual data in this listing comes from the organiser's official website (destinationmontagnes.com).