While summer skiing continues on three glaciers, the diggers are running everywhere else: summer is construction season. These are the most important projects aimed at the 2026/27 season – as of July 2026.
The Swiss building sites
Zermatt: Patrullarve six-seat chairlift (Leitner). The new detachable chairlift with bubbles replaces an ageing lift in the Sunnegga/Blauherd sector and is intended to increase return capacity significantly. For the largest year-round ski area in the Alps, another building block in an ongoing fleet renewal.
Innertkirchen: Trift cableway (Steurer). In the Bernese Oberland, a new eight-person aerial tramway into the Trift area is being built – not a ski project in the narrow sense, but one of the most interesting ropeway undertakings in Switzerland: it opens up the area around the dramatically shrunken Trift glacier and its famous suspension bridge.
Samnaun/Ischgl: a 50-million programme. The cross-border Silvretta Arena – currently the highest-rated ski area with Swiss participation according to skiresort.ch – has completely rebuilt two lifts on existing alignments. Total investment: around 50 million euros. The resort is underlining its claim to be the benchmark for lift infrastructure in the Alps.
The trend behind the projects
What is striking is what is being built: hardly any new terrain is being opened up. Instead there are replacements on existing alignments – faster, more comfortable, more energy-efficient. The industry is investing in quality rather than quantity. There are three reasons:
- Energy costs and efficiency pressure: modern drives, and direct drives in particular, save a marked amount of electricity.
- Staff shortages: detachable installations with a high degree of automation need fewer operating personnel.
- Climate reality: investment goes where the snow future is most secure – to high altitudes and snowmaking infrastructure, not to marginal locations.
What we are watching
We will keep this list going through the summer and add to it as resorts announce new projects – the large Grisons and Valais destinations traditionally publish their detailed programmes in late summer. Is a project missing? Tell us.
Sources: skiresort.ch/skiresort.info (new lifts in Switzerland 2026/27), Silvretta Seilbahn AG (news for winter 25/26 and 26/27), ADAC Skiguide new developments 2026, manufacturer information (Leitner, Garaventa, Steurer). Details of individual projects are subject to the lift companies’ official announcements.
