Something shifted in how people think about holidays after 2020, and it has not shifted back. Beach resorts, cruise ships, and city breaks are all doing fine — but the fastest-growing segment of premium travel is something older and quieter: mountains. Clean air, physical space, genuine nature, and the particular silence that exists above 1,400 metres. These are not things you can manufacture, and they have become genuinely difficult to find at a standard that matches what affluent travellers now expect from a destination.
The numbers bear this out. Knight Frank’s 2026 Alpine Property Report found that 73% of high-net-worth individuals would consider full-time alpine living — a figure that would have seemed implausible before the pandemic normalised remote work and long-stay travel. Demand for ski and mountain property has outpaced almost every other residential category in Europe for the third consecutive year. And yet the inventory of truly complete mountain resorts — the kind with extensive ski infrastructure, year-round programming, hotel-grade services, and properties actually worth owning — has barely grown.
The Alps, which have defined the category for decades, are not building new ones. The planning constraints are too severe, the land too scarce, and the politics of second-home development in places like Chamonix and Verbier too entrenched. The best established resorts are effectively closed to new supply. What exists is what there is.
“73% of high-net-worth individuals would now consider full-time alpine living. The supply of destinations capable of accommodating them has not kept pace.”
The supply problem nobody is talking about
The scale of the shortfall becomes clearer when you look at what a serious mountain resort actually requires. Hundreds of kilometres of developed ski slopes across multiple elevations. Lift infrastructure capable of handling peak-season volume without queues that destroy the experience. Hotels operated by internationally recognised brands, not regional chains. Restaurants, wellness facilities, summer programming. And crucially: enough residential inventory to allow buyers to own, not just visit.
Most mountain destinations in Europe meet some of these criteria. Very few meet all of them. In the Alps, the resorts that do — Courchevel, Verbier, St. Moritz, Zermatt — have become so expensive and so restricted that they function more as trophy asset markets than functional destinations for a broad base of buyers. A square metre in Courchevel 1850 now costs between €30,600 and €33,900. Switzerland’s Lex Koller law caps foreign purchases at 200 square metres and limits buyers to an annual permit quota. Chamonix has banned new second homes outright.
The result is a category that is growing in demand and shrinking in accessible supply. For developers, that is a clear signal. For buyers who read it early, it is an opportunity.
Where the new mountain resorts are being built
The geography of serious mountain development has shifted east. The Balkans — and Montenegro in particular — have the elevation, the snowfall, the land availability, and increasingly the infrastructure to support large-scale resort development of a kind that is simply no longer possible in Western Europe.
Montenegro’s northern mountains receive consistent winter snowfall at altitudes between 1,400 and 1,800 metres. The terrain is comparable to mid-range Alpine topography — varied, skiable across a range of abilities, and capable of supporting extensive slope networks. The country is an EU candidate with the Euro as its official currency, no restrictions on foreign property ownership, and an improving road network that has dramatically reduced travel times from its international airport.
It is also largely undiscovered. Which is precisely the point.
The scale of international attention is becoming concrete. The EU–Western Balkans Summit held on 5 June 2026 in Tivat — attended by 42 delegations, heads of state and government from across the European Union, and more than 400 journalists from 30-plus countries — placed Montenegro at the centre of Europe’s geopolitical and economic agenda. Among the names paying attention to northern Montenegro’s development potential is Mohamed Alabar, founder of Emaar Properties and one of the most consequential real estate investors in the world. Interest of this calibre does not typically follow a market inflection. It tends to arrive just before one.
150 kilometres of slopes, built from the ground up
The development that most clearly illustrates what is now possible in this market is Kolašin Valleys — a resort masterplanned by Ecosign, the Canadian firm responsible for Whistler Blackcomb and more than 400 ski areas worldwide. Ecosign’s involvement matters not as a credential but as a methodology: the firm’s master plans define the slope network, the lift placement, the vertical drop sequencing, and the long-term capacity of a mountain before a single building is constructed. It is the difference between a resort that works and one that looks good in a brochure.
At full build-out, Kolašin Valleys will have 150 kilometres of ski slopes across two villages situated at 1,450 and 1,600 metres above sea level. That is not a regional comparison point. One hundred and fifty kilometres of piste puts a resort in the conversation with Courchevel-Méribel-Les Menuires, with the Ski Arlberg, with the major destinations that define the category globally. The difference is that Kolašin Valleys is being built now, on land that is available, in a country that welcomes foreign buyers.
The resort already has a functioning anchor: Swissôtel Resort Kolašin opened in 2025 and is fully operational. The broader resort includes 23 hotel and residential buildings, 73 private chalets — all with ski-in/ski-out access — and more than 30 restaurants and lounges. Hotel operations are managed by Accor-affiliated brands. Residences start from €4,900 per square metre. Private chalets begin at €3 million, delivered turnkey.
“One hundred and fifty kilometres of ski slopes puts Kolašin Valleys in the same conversation as the major Alps destinations. The difference is that it is still being built — at a price that reflects today, not a finished market.”
Not just a winter story
The mountain tourism boom is not solely a skiing story, and the most successful new resorts understand this. Kolašin Valleys sits within a protected nature reserve in the Montenegrin Alps, at an altitude where summer temperatures stay between 18 and 24°C. The programming reflects this: summer hiking trails, mountain biking routes, outdoor dining across more than 30 venues, and spa facilities that operate year-round. For buyers from the Gulf, from Southern Europe, and from the increasingly hot cities of Central Europe, this is not a secondary feature — it is often the primary draw.
There is a structural capital story running alongside this shift. Dubai — which spent much of the last decade attracting private wealth and real estate investment from across the globe — is now seeing a portion of that capital move in the other direction: toward European markets that offer lower entry prices and stronger long-term regulatory certainty. For investors from the Gulf operating in that context, Montenegro’s trajectory as a confirmed EU candidate state — with full accession anticipated before the end of the decade — adds a dimension that few European mountain markets can match: a one-time rerating event when membership is formalised, against entry prices that still reflect an emerging, not an established, market.
A four-season resort changes the investment calculation significantly. A property that generates rental income across two distinct high-demand periods — winter skiing and summer mountain escape — has a fundamentally different yield profile from one that operates for four months and goes quiet. The dual-season model is what the best Alpine resorts have always offered. Kolašin Valleys has been designed from the masterplan level to replicate it.
The window that is still open
Real estate markets at this stage of development follow a recognisable pattern. There is an early period — sometimes a few years, sometimes less — when the infrastructure is being built, the brand recognition is forming, and the pricing reflects uncertainty rather than outcome. Then the resort opens fully, the international press arrives, the prices recalibrate, and the entry window closes.
The Alps went through this cycle decades ago. The question for buyers today is not whether mountain resort property is a sound long-term investment — Knight Frank’s data suggests it demonstrably is, with Alpine property indices up 23% since 2008 and demand continuing to outpace supply. The question is whether you are buying in a market that has already priced that thesis, or one that is still in the process of establishing it.
Montenegro, and Kolašin Valleys specifically, is still in the earlier phase. Swissôtel is open. The slopes are being built. The motorway is finished. The EU accession process is advancing. The buyers who are paying attention to mountain real estate are beginning to arrive.
For a category defined by scarcity, arriving early has historically been the only strategy that works.
Sources: Knight Frank Alpine Property Report 2026. Project details: Kolašin Valleys (kolasinvalleys.com). This article is editorial analysis and does not constitute investment advice.
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