An increasingly elite sport reserved for the wealthy, when the 0.1% hit the slopes, it’s a lavish affair hosted by the world’s very best billionaire-friendly ski resorts that liberally sprinkle a one-two-three punch of sun, snow and sexy après-ski.
Being seen on the right ski scenes is high up on the checklists of a monied subset of snow sports enthusiasts, where each ski season is fertile, snowy ground for hobnobbing in high-altitude playgrounds accessed by private airfields and helipads.
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Michelin-starred restaurants, Moncler jackets, Gucci-logoed skis, private jet airfields, flowing Moet champagne, private members’ clubs with views of snow-capped peaks, polo tournaments and five-star hotel form the DNA of these affluent ski resorts where après ski tabs run into their thousands.
From a new breed of ultra-exclusive, invitation-only billionaire ski communities and privately-owned mountains to storied, old glamour Alpine resorts, you’ll find the world’s high-spenders papped on chairlifts, dripping in Moncler, schussing down red runs or partying to the freshest beats to the backdrop of snow-capped peaks and serrated mountain ranges.
We round up some of the world’s most exclusive ski resorts where you’ll find the world’s tech entrepreneurs, oligarchs, heads-of-state, royalty and aristocracy hitting the slopes.
Courchevel 1850 - France
What’s it like?
One of France’s most glamorous ski resorts, the beating heart of the six villages that connect Courchevel via a winding mountain road and magical forests is Courchevel 1850.
A resort with its own private airstrip – VIP spotting is a sport second only to the skiing and snowboarding. Courchevel’s clientele need to look the part to fit in with the crowd – monogrammed helmets, Chanel goggles, Louis Vuitton skis and Moncler snowboards.
The French resort’s slopes are braggy, sartorial masterclass in helmet-to-boot designer gear worn liberally by the richest slivers of society. Even the ski lifts are branded with Gucci and Prada.
A quick people-watching pit stop at mountainside oldie Le Cap Horn’s sun-soaked, mountain-side restaurant for lunch, and you’re almost guaranteed to dine on sashimi and steak, to the buzzy soundtrack of corks popping, business deals being made and celebrated with frothy sprays of magnum after magnum of Möet & Chandon, each table brimming with the impossibly rich and powerful.
A monied party crowd let their hair down in hedonistic, flashy mountain hotspots La Folie Douce which puts on live music including international DJs spinning best beats reverberating across the Alps.
Although Courchevel is known for profligate materialism, it also offers some of the best skiing in France across a huge ski domain – Les Trois Vallées straddling 375 miles of ski runs.
Dressing the resort’s high-spending skiers are the high-end shopping destinations in Courchevel 1850’s starry centre lined with designer stores including Louis Vuitton, Fendi and Balenciaga, as well as art galleries, prestige diamond brands and fur boutiques.
No less than eight Michel-starred restaurants appease high-billing appetites. Opening during the lucrative winter months, you’ll find Courchevel’s high rollers dining at Le 1947 at boutique hotel Le Cheval Blanc, which has banked three Michelin stars for its playful, French-inspired haute-cuisine.
Headed by star Parisian chef Yannick Alléno, the restaurant has just five tables with an impossible wait list. This is the highest echelons of après ski fine dining to the backdrop of stunning Alpine scenery.
Courchevel is the second-most expensive ski resort in the world according to high-end estate agent Savills. Data featured in the 2024’ Ski Prime Price League shows that average asking prices reached €34,600 per square metre in the glamorous French resort.
Super-chalets owned by the world’s wealthiest dominate the mountainside, mostly standing empty until next year’s season with a few rented during the glorious summer months when the verdant hills trickle with walkers and golfers vacationing outside of season.
Inside the impossibly luxurious Alpine homes are five-star amenities including swimming pools, treatment rooms, private cinemas, personal chefs and gyms.
Despite Courchevel being a year-round destination offering hiking, golf and fishing, most of the Ultra-High-Net-Worth (UHNW) families head to their summer retreats on Mediterranean islands, superyachts and VIP European hotspots St Tropez and Capri.
Where to stay
The resort offers a concentrated shot of five-star hotels and fully staffed super-chalets. The Himalayas-inspired K2 Altitude Hotels is a favourite among VIPs and billionaires with just 28 rooms and suites. Stellar amenities include a private cinema, relaxation area with hammam and pool and haute-cuisine restaurant.
The ski-in, ski-out Cheval Blanc offering Michelin-starred food and sensational Guerlain Spa is also worth a mention, attracting ultra-rich skiers from across the globe. The 19th century, five-star hotel Les Airelles is a winter fairytale set amid a magical pine forest and snow-capped mountains.
Who goes there
Oligarchs, A-listers, VIPs, tech-billionaires, European aristocracy, Saudi royalty.
When to go
Courchevel is a year-round destination, but the resort really comes alive in the winter months – December to April.
St Mortiz – Switzerland
What’s it like?
A thick dusting of wealth is liberally sprinkled across the discreet grande dame of elite mountain resorts, the glittering sheen of fresh snow reflecting a polished facade with a veneer of extravagant eccentricity reserved with those with lots of cash to burn – moonlight ice-skating, ice cricket and the slightly bonkers Cresta Run sledding – that has been welcoming the world’s well-heeled since 1864.
Considered the birthplace of winter tourism, an old guard of upmarket Swiss ski resorts, generational wealth whispers in hushed tones – the flash of a Patek watch, a sparkle of a Chopard collier or the louder shout of Balenciaga skis or Gucci one-piece.
Served by a private airfield, the great and good flock to glamorous St Mortiz to enjoy charming architecture flecked with high-end boutiques, art galleries, five-star hotels, haute-cuisine restaurants, upscale bars and excellent ski runs.
It’s also home to the fifth most expensive prime ski property market in the world, according to Savills’ last Ski Prime Price league.
You’ll find St Mortiz’s movers and shakers enjoying high-altitude, haute-cuisine – well-dressed raclette and lobster – at Langosteria, a slopeside new place to see and be seen on the ski slopes overlooking St Moritz.
Fine dining super-rich head to the two-Michelin-starred Da Vittorio in the Carlton Hotel serving technically exquisite Italian fare to the backdrop of the stunning Alpine vistas.
Billionaire apres-ski shenanigans are well represented at private members’ club, The Dracula Club – one of Europe’s most famous members-only ski resort clubs opened in 1974.
Inside you’ll find Swiss elite – top financiers, banking dynasty heirs and titled hanging out with tech billionaires and celebrities.
In the summer months the club hosts the Festival da Jazz, which has become a highlight of the Swiss high-society calendar.
Monied adrenaline junkies can try their luck on the world-famous Cresta run – a 1.2 kilometre sculpted ice track that’s built to test the skill and courage of human endeavour. Officially launched in 1885, it is one of the world’s only natural ice runs that still stages international competitions.
Taking place every last weekend in January since 1985, The Snow Polo World Cup is the world’s only tournament played on the snow.
The super rich, high society and the world’s movers and shakers gather here on an annual winter pilgrimage in their finest winter attire worshipping ultra luxury – Gucci, Moncler and Louis Vuitton – over three days to sip finest champagne and spectate ‘the sport of kings’ from the glitzy grandstands.
A stay at the legendary, five-star Badrutt’s Hotel offers a peephole into another strata of wealth. Overlooking lake St. Moritz, the storied winter fairytale hotel is a legendary statement masterpiece hugged by snow-capped Alps and offering a dizzying level of old-world style service.
Arriving by private jet, vintage Rolls Royce or the iconic red Bernina Express Train is the norm for the hotel’s VIP guests.
Decadence is served up on silver platters, dishing up five-star luxury refined palettes of a fashionable crowd including royalty, European aristocracy, celebrities and skiers with bulging bank accounts.
Impossibly glamorous famous past guests shimmying through Le Grand Hall include Coco Chanel, Greta Garbo, Brigitte Bardot, Marlene Dietrich and iconic film director Alfred Hitchcock.
Where to stay
For a slice of Swiss old-world glamour to the backdrop of roaring fireplaces and free flowing champagne, head to the five-star Alpine fairytale hideaway Badrutt’s Palace where you’re guarantee to mix with the world’s elite.
Who goes there
Old banking dynasties, Swiss elite, oligarchs, European aristocracy, royalty, celebrities and supermodels
When to go
You can’t go wrong if you wear your wealth well. Champagne and couture are the staples of the winter season in St Moritz, but for extra billionaire-spotting brownie points the last weekend of January is where you’ll find a coterie of the world’s 0.1% sipping the good stuff in the VIP tents at the annual St Moritz Polo tournament.
Aspen – USA
What’s it like?
A magical winter location wooing UHNW big spenders to the backdrop of the magnificent Elk Mountain range, this US super resort is where the rich and powerful collide – metaphorically, of course – on the slopes of Aspen Snowmass, which offers a huge ski terrain made up of four distinctly different resorts.
A who’s who of policy makers, digital disruptors, oil tycoons, real estate moguls, high-rolling financiers, A-listers and heads-of-state are some of 0.1% that spend top dollar on some of Aspen’s ski homes – officially the most expensive ski real estate in the world, retaining its top spot in Savills’s Prime Ski Price League, with asking prices at nearly €40,000 per square metre.
Listed in Aspen Sojourner’s ‘Top 50’, are some of the wealthiest people on the planet who own homes in Aspen. The second richest man in the world, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, worth US$206.9 billion according to the Forbes Rich List, owns a home in Red Mountain – likened to a snowy ‘the Hamptons’ and referred to as ‘Billionaire Mountain’.
Willougby Way is widely considered to be the starry resort’s best street in the wealthy neighbourhood where a residence sold for $108 million in 2024.
Other billionaire homeowners in this VIP, high-altitude playground include Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich, Michael Dell – founder of Dell Technologies – the Lauder family, Walmart heiress Ann Walton Kroenke and magnate Bill Koch who is selling his Aspen home for $125 million.
Aspen’s ultra-exclusive restaurants, bars and hotels swell with celebrities, VIPs and A-listers who vacation at the starry Colorado town.
Recently spotted enjoying the slopes were A-list royalty Mariah Carey, the Kardashians, Heidi Klum, Goldie Hawn, Leonardo di Caprio and Kevin Costner, many of whom were spotted at top sushi celeb haunt Matsuhisa and the sun-drenched, mountainside Ajax Tavern at the base of Aspen Mountain.
Second to the skiing is the upscale shopping, with luxury brands well represented in Aspen’s town centre including Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton and Moncler.
Private members’ clubs are as abundant as the snow, offering a powder keg of luxury interiors coupled with stellar amenities and network opportunities.
It’s all about who you know, with these exclusive, cloud-skimming high-society hotspots bursting at the seams with USA’s top movers and shakers enjoying fine dining and raucous parties, to the backdrop of the orange glow of sunsets over the Rocky Mountains.
Big players include The Caribou Club, The Aspen Mountain Club and The Snowmass Mountain Club.
Packed with some of the biggest names in the USA is ski-in, ski-out, five-star hotel The Little Nell, which has hosted the likes of Justin Bieber and Beyonce.
An après ski hotspot and one of the best people-watching spots in town, The Little Nell is Aspen’s answer to Soho House, with 92 rooms, award-winning restaurant Element 47, and Chair 9 – the high-rollin’ après-ski bar in Aspen.
Little Nell’s exclusive wine club offers curated wine experiences, private tastings, and rare vintages sourced from around the world.
The gilded resort’s beautiful and rich let their hair down at iconic, mountaintop Eleven212, sitting at 11,212 feet, which pulses with the beats of the world’s best DJs to the stunning backdrop of the Elk Mountain range.
Where to stay
The Little Nell, Aspen’s only five-star and five-diamond star-studded hotel. It is the entire microcosm of the Aspen scene. You can even have your ski boots preheated each morning, so you don’t have to worry about cold feet.
Who goes there
The world’s billionaires, A-listers, supermodels, VIPs, politicians and high-earners.
When to go
The town sparkles with fresh powder from December to February. March and April in Aspen offer warmer temperatures, plenty of snow, and a great sunny après-ski scene.
Verbier - Switzerland
One of the ritziest and sophisticated ski resort towns in the world, Verbier is a high-end winter wonderland offering stunning scenery, festivals, shopping, fantastic restaurants and an expansive ski domain – one of the largest in Switzerland straddling 410 km of skiing terrain known to challenge even professional skiers.
It’s also a trophy lifestyle, especially for rich, nomadic working Brits that stay all season long – Verbier is dubbed the ‘Sloane Square-on-the-Slopes’- often working remotely to squeeze every drop of ski time before the summer crowds move in.
One of Europe’s best places to go people watching, the world’s great and good descend on this five-star Swiss resort, bathed in days of endless sunshine.
You’ll need cavernous pockets to keep up with the Moncler-clad, monied crowd that descend on this Swiss resort. Here you’ll find champagne-swigging royals – the British royal family love Verbier – papped on ski lifts, billionaires being helicoptered onto the freshest off-piste tracks and A-listers shimmying into impossibly luxurious, five-star hotels.
Celebrities recently snapped enjoying ‘Verbs’ vibes were the Beckhams, royals William and Kate, Barack Obama, Madonna, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Oliver and Hugh Grant.
The sun-soaked, mountainside lunch spot Le Mouton Noir, offers 360-degree views of the Petit Combin and the valley below from the huge terrace.
You’ll also find Verbier’s ultra-rich enjoying a break from the skiing with hearty, upscale hearty mountain food. Après ski party people strut their derrieres to the eclectic beats of a glitzy roster of international DJs getting the crowd into the Verbier spirit each afternoon.
The best place to party is at legendary nightspot the Farm Club, which has been around for more than 45 years. Sitting next to the Experimental Chalet, the club has become an institution, where David Bowie and Diana Ross both once hit the dance floor.
Locals and visitors often spot billionaire Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson walking through the town centre – dotted with wealth-management companies and POA real estate agencies – en route to his Alpine chalet, The Lodge, which is available to rent for around £100,000 per week in high season.
The Virgin Limited Edition Verbier mountainside retreat offers big-spending skiers nine bedrooms, an indoor and outdoor pool, hot tubs, private cinema, party room and Michelin-star trained chefs on tap.
So esteemed is Verbier on the circuit, that exclusive London private members’ club dedicated to wine 67 Pall Mall set up a Verbier outpost where super-rich wine lovers luxuriate over the finest wine to the backdrop of snow-capped Alps.
The only ski-in, ski-out, five-star hotel in the resort is the W Verbier which won the ‘World’s Best Ski Hotel’ for the seventh year in a row in the annual World Ski Awards.
The debut Alpine ski retreat outpost from the upscale, super-cool W Brand brings a whole new level of stylish accommodation to the world-class ski resort.
Where to stay
Head to Châlet d’Adrien for a five-star experience in wood-clad chalet housing the resort’s only Michelin-starred restaurant offering spectacular mountain views.
Fashion-forward skiers that like to ski-in and ski-out might opt for the very slick, contemporary-meets-Swiss-charm W Hotel Verbier.
Who goes there
Very rich Brits, nomadic workers, royalty, aristocracy, hardcore tycoon billionaire skiers, monied gap year students in ‘Verbs’ for a season, titled chalet girls and A-listers on chairlifts.
When to go
New Year’s Eve is a lavish affair with a spectacular fireworks show and free flowing champagne.
Gstaad - Switzerland
Made famous by old Hollywood glamour Richard Burton, Liz Taylor, Brigitte Bardot and Roger Moore, the jet set, oligarchical Gstaad is where grandeur, glamour and gold Rolex watches provide the dress code for one of the ritziest and most famous ski towns in the world attracting the titled, hip beautiful and mega rich.
Bottomless Krug champagne and caviar is the plat du jour, to be enjoyed on sun-drenched terraces with stellar mountain views. People don’t really come to Gstaad to ski, rather to be seen.
Those holidaying on superyachts in Ibiza or the Caribbean swap deck shoes for Rossignols. Here you’ll find banking dynasty heirs slaloming down a red run on Mount Eggli (the place to be if you ski), tailed by shipping tycoons, tech billionaires, trust fund kids, A-listers and the world’s stupendously rich.
Ranking sixth most expensive prime ski market in realtor Savills’s annual Prime Ski Price League, the 0.1% splurge on slopeside super-chalets that offer a home from home complete with indoor swimming pools, discotheques, saunas, home cinemas, butlers and even underground garages for classic car collections.
The outside-of-season sleepy Alpine town – its main promenade lined with Louis Vuitton, Bvlgari, Hermes and Trois Pommes boutiques – swells in December to February, with Christmas a particularly lavish affair where a tightly knit coterie of the 0.1% provide some of the highest concentrations of uber-wealthy in Europe.
For one week at Christmas, Gstaad’s combined net worth is stratospheric, the skies above the luxury Swiss resort reverberating with the sound of helicopters transferring wealthy passengers and private jets queuing to land at Gstaad-Saanen airport.
From January-March, the resort becomes a literal playground for the richest kids on the planet, bodyguards in tow. The exclusive Swiss boarding school Le Rosay relocates to its Gstaad campus for the winter season. Nicknamed ‘the Eton of the Alps’, yearly fees average $130,000 per year, with alumni counting the Rothschilds, the Rockerfellers, the Monaco royals and a string of kings and princes.
Although Gstaad is considered to have a quieter nightlife scene than its Alpine counterparts, there’s plenty of apres ski venues with free flowing champagne and Grey Goose on ice.
Business magazine Forbes lists Gstaad’s Alpina Lounge & Bar at The Alpina Gstaad as one of the best bars in the world with a space dedicated entirely to the world of Japanese whisky.
Gstaad Palace
Perched on a hilltop, crowning the ultra-exclusive, snowy playboy playground of the impossibly rich and famous is the turreted winter fairytale Gstaad Palace.
The discreet five-star hotel, one of the Leading Hotels of the World, drips with wealth and has been hosting some of the world’s wealthiest since it opened in 1913.
The Alpine answer to Claridge’s, Gstaad’s Palace’s famous alumni includes royalty, heads-of-state, A-listers and some of the most glamorous personalities in modern history including Princess Diana, Brigette Bardot and Elizabeth Taylor.
During the 1960’s, the glitzy Alpine resort played host to champagne-fuelled Gala dinners attended by the biggest names of the era including Marlene Dietrich, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.
The wintry grande dame has been family-run for generations, with old and new money jetting in on private jets to experience the highest rungs of opulence warmed by roaring fireplaces and framed by stunning winterscape views of snow-capped mountains.
Beautiful party people party all night long at GreenGo – the hotel’s in-house 70s-themed discotheque. The best place to party in Gstaad, you’ll find international DJs dropping the best vibes in town.
Where to stay
For a glimpse of some of the richest people in the planet luxuriating by the open fires in ski boots, a stay at the legendary turreted masterpiece Gstaad Palace is a must.
Who goes there
Red carpet A-listers, oligarchs, shipping tycoons, tech billionaires, banking dynasties.
When to go
Gstaad spills over with wealth during the winter season, reaching a crescendo at Christmas when the red carpets roll out and the private airport’s runway congests with billionaire jets.
Cortina d’Ampezzo - Italy
High society meets high altitude and haute couture in the deliciously glamorous Italian ski resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo – the ‘Queen of the Dolomites’.
A stupendously rich jet set crowd swaps the Cote d’Azur and Capri for Cortina d’Ampezzo where breathtaking views across the valley provide the backdrop to the clink of champagne glasses, a billionaire or two carving down the mountain or traversing over 140 km of runs across three ski areas.
A hushed magic flows through the mountains here, attracting impossibly wealthy banking dynasties, European elite, magnates, royals, celebrities and socialites that like to be seen in the right circles while on the winter circuit. For context, the town’s population of 5,000 swells to 50,000 during the peak winter season.
Old money loves this starry Italian resort – Italy’s answer to St Moritz. A historic honeypot for European elite and A-lister Sophia Loren, she opened the first Winter Olympics here giving the resort serious gravitas in the style stakes.
Behind the closed doors of ultra-exclusive, heirloom chalets passed down for generations, multi-billion-pound business deals are made and fantastically indulgent parties held.
A parade of who’s who in this storied resort comes out to play in head-to-snowboot Fendi with matching Fendi-clad lap dogs on the Cortina d’Ampezzo.
The most famous pedestrian street in the Dolomites is lined with boutiques, traditional Italian restaurants serving homemade pasta, artisanal restaurants and 18th-century buildings with mountain backdrops at every turn.
History is worn proudly here and there’s a real sense of Italian authenticity in this monied resort – less brash and showy than upscale Alpine counterparts.
Cortina’s original grande dame, the five-star Cristallo Resort has recently been acquired by Asian super luxe brand Mandarin Oriental, with a ceremonious unveiling of the bastion of Alpine luxury hotels.
The five-star Nordic Hotel Tofana adds a shot of ultra-modern accommodation.
Where to stay
The Cristallo Resort & Spa is being renovated and reopened as a Mandarin Oriental resort in the summer of 2025.
Who goes there
European elite, royalty, decision makers, Italian A-listers, international jet setters.
When to go
Christmas in Cortina d’Ampezzo bursts at the seams with an elite crowd.
Powder Mountain - USA
What’s it like
When Netflix billionaire founder Reed Hastings purchased Utah’s largest resort Powder Mountain for a reported US$ $100 million, he set an astonishing precedent for the portfolios of the world’s billionaires.
While many of the world’s wealthiest have diversified investments through ownership of private islands and golf courses, the corporate acquisition of an entire mountain is a one-of-a-kind roll of the dice, with Hastings’ vanguard vision fusing public skiing with a members’ only access ski area and high-end residential community.
Powder Haven is the residential side of Utah’s Powder Mountain, only open to, and skiable by, the private club’s UHNW members and homeowners.
Real estate plots in one of the world’s first private mountain communities start at around $2 million at time of writing, with annual by-invitation-only memberships starting from $25,000, plus an initiation fee.
The apex of high-altitude living aimed at thrill-seeking, UHNW individuals whose version of one-upmanship is a slice of an exclusive private mountain, the under-construction ski community currently has 44 fully built family homes and five-star residences with 24 under construction and 80 lots that have been sold but not built on. Memberships will be capped at 650 to maintain privacy and exclusivity.
Residents will enjoy year-round amenities including private ski lifts, powder runs, lakeside and mountain lodges, and a planned state-of-the-art wellness centre.
Mountain living is complete with a 68,000 square-foot retreat reopened in Summer 2025.
Designed as a skier’s paradise, the exclusive members’ retreat will offer restaurants, bars, bowling, climbing walls, a year-round outdoor pool, spa, wellness centre, pickleball courts and everything après ski to ski lockers.
Setting the original bar to cloud-skimming heights is Montana’s ultra-exclusive, high-altitude billionaire playground Yellowstone Club – the world’s first private ski and golf community offering 2,900 acres of privately accessed, members-only ski runs and an 18-hole mountain golf course.
Membership fees are around $400,000, plus over $40,000 in undisclosed fees and you will need to buy a plot or build a luxury mountain home.
The least expensive undeveloped plot will set you back $10 million with condos starting at $7 million and finished homes averaging $20 million or more.
Celebrity and billionaire members include Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Justin Timberlake, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Paris Hilton and Tom Brady.
Where to stay
If you have a few million to build a home and a little black book of big-name connections, say Bill Gates, say hello to your new neighbours with a magnum of champagne at Yellowstone Club or Powder Haven.
Who goes there
A veritable who’s who of the celebrity and billionaire world.
When to go
Utah ski season runs from November to April with February the best time to find powder.
