Swiss Ski Resort Offers $5 Pass as Lifts Reopen After Dispute

(Bloomberg) -- The Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana offered lift passes for just 5 Swiss francs ($5.20) on Friday as it reopened following a dispute that enraged Easter vacationers and cast doubt on a potential bid to host the winter Olympics.

The offer, undercutting the usual one-day price of 69 francs, made no mention of the spat over an 800,000-franc subsidy that had prompted the resort's lift company to shut down its operations on Tuesday evening.

Local politician Christophe Darbellay brokered an agreement on Thursday evening, according to local media reports. The closure comes two months before residents of the Swiss canton of Valais vote on whether to support a bid by its capital Sion to host the 2026 Olympics. If the bid is successful, Crans-Montana -- home to James Bond actor Roger Moore for two decades -- would hold the flagship alpine skiing events.

The dispute “is certainly not a plus” for the canton's Olympic ambitions, said Roland Schegg, a professor of tourism at the University of Applied Sciences Arts of Western Switzerland.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hugo Miller in Geneva at hugomiller@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net, Dylan Griffiths, Zoe Schneeweiss

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