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Doing business on the golf course is a well-established ploy, but combining business with pleasure doesn’t come much more pleasurably than in the mountains, where invigoratingly clear and crisp air, blue skies and the prospect of skiing after, between or even during work is arguably an even more tempting concept.

Many ski tour operators now specialise in hosting corporate seminars, conferences and product launches (which the participants might be uncomfortable about referring to as ‘holidays’.) It’s big business for them as well as their clients. No-one has to ski. Most people find just being in the mountains is therapeutic. But for those who do ski, a business ‘event’ takes on a very different hue.

Bankers and doctors are among the most regular professions to take their work to the Alps. The Swiss resort town of Davos (linked with the Prince of Wales’ favourite skiing hangout, Klosters) is as famous as a conference centre as a ski resort. Globally, presidents, prime ministers and other senior political figures have of course been known to gather at conferences in Rocky Mountain ski resorts such as Aspen, Colorado or Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

One of the UK’s most up-market operators, the London-based Descent International, has 13 luxury chalets in some of the most fashionable resorts in the Swiss and French Alps. Says the company’s MD, Kit Harrison: “In the world of corporate events, the hardest thing for a blue chip company to find is a truly flexible and professional host.

“Most of our business is about one corporate group showcasing their company for another group. Corporate clients account for about 25% of our business. They tend to be long weekends, and since we provide our chalets for an entire week, clients they can either run two corporate groups during the week, or perhaps ski en famille for part of the week before or after the corporate sessions.

“Of course, some guests don’t necessarily ski. They just love to soak up the mountain atmosphere. Our chalets are configured with up-to- the-minute technology for conference calls, live feeds and encrypted wireless communication. With our own IT specialist, levels of guest security are uniquely designed around our guests and their company profile.

Amin Momen, boss of another London tour operation, Momentum Ski - the official organiser of BBC TV’s Olympics production team’s transport arrangements to the Turin Winter Games in February – says: "Many global clients don’t really get a chance to get together with colleagues from their other international offices and the Alps are a good central meeting place to discuss work in a perfect environment.”

Momen is perfectly placed to lure upwardly mobile clients to the Alps: his company runs the annual City Ski Championships in Courmayeur, Italy, which attracts some 200 bankers, financial analysts, lawyers and stockbrokers from the London’s financial community. High-flyers from such organisations as Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Accenture, Goldman Sachs and Lloyds take part in a keenly contested Giant Slalom race. Regular participants who appreciate Momentum’s expertise may well use the company again for other corporate events.

Says Momen: “Some of our clients have used meeting rooms in hotels, or used mountain locations for meetings before unwinding over a lively dinner and then perhaps a toboggan or snowmobile ride back down to the village.” John Barcroft, a senior anaesthetist and lecturer at Stanmore Hospital, Middx, is a great advocate of holding medical conferences in the mountains. “North American doctors woke up to this long ago” he says, “and a simple internet search will come up with hundreds of medical ski meetings involving all sorts of doctors from general practitioners to brain surgeons.

“Skiing is great leveller” he adds. “Professor or house officer – they all have the same status. You can talk to anybody. At a big London meeting you will never get the chance of sitting down with one of the speakers and debating his or her talk. At ski resorts it happens all the time. The actual meeting is far more than just the official programme. The shared thrills and dangers of skiing bring people together. At breakfast, at lunch, in the bar and over dinner, anaesthetists of all grades and seniority talk shop. There is some gossip as well of course, but it’s mostly “shop” (occasionally delegates bring non-medical partners – they rarely do it twice!)”

Says Kit Harrison: “We have created an environment that simply does not exist anywhere else. The chalet is your own private hotel, prepared exactly as you wish after personal consultation with our Head of Events. She comes to your office and tailors every aspect of the event with you. Unlike hotels – where so often you end up walking miles down poorly lit impersonal corridors to your stuffy room, its faceless door protected by yet another swipe card lock - the entire staff are your own, and they deal only with the issues that matter to you and your group.

“The chauffeur drives a top of the range 4x4 that has never been near an impersonal hotel car pool and our Executive Chef designs menus that are specifically geared to your tastes. There is no set menu, no formal dress code, there are no other guests and the bar never closes.”

“Clients come to us to conduct business deals, attend conferences, or as part of incentive schemes. They may well want to ski as well, or get involved in things like ice driving in the company's fleet of Volkswagen Touaregs, hold special wine tastings with the company of our own Master Sommelier, enjoy ice bars on the terrace with live jazz and a barbecue around the pool, race days, dinners, corporate breakfasts in a hot air balloon high over the Alps, the sky is literally the limit.

“Naturally, with work comes play - the masseuse is on hand with a range of our own massage oils, designed specifically for skiers. The sauna, hot tub, steam room and cinema also play their role. So with the team of staff quietly and efficiently preparing the evening's event, you can work hard, play hard, wondering to yourself why you haven't done this before.”

Dr Barcroft says: “Normally, a typical medical meeting in the UK starts at about 9.30am and goes through to 12 noon. Even with the 30 minute coffee session at mid-morning, by lunchtime, after two hours of lectures, most brains are approaching overload, and need a break. Instead there is lunch: more sitting, more talking, no activity. Then, at 2pm, just as the biological clock is suggesting a nap, delegates are back on the conference hall for a two-and-a-half hour battle trying to stay awake through another series of lectures – lectures that, however well prepared and delivered, few people will remember anything about. In other words the afternoon session in these meetings is a waste of time.

“The problem is too much sitting about and not enough exercise. Inactivity is soporific while exercise revives a sleepy brain. We all know this. Indeed sleep experts recommend avoiding exercise within two hours of bedtime. So the secret of getting two useful educational sessions in one day is to have a period of fresh air and exercise in between. And for fresh air and exercise, what better activity is there than skiing?

“Seventeen years ago, Dr Bernie Liban, an anaesthetist at St George's Hospital in London organised an Anaesthesia Update in the French ski resort of La Clusaz in the French ski resort of La Clusaz for the last week of January. Under the banner “Medical education in a perfect location”, this annual meeting has grown from less than 50 delegates in La Clusaz to more than 300 participants, from all corners of the globe, at the last gathering in Belle Plagne, also in the French Alps.

“The official programme involves a 90-minute morning session from 8am to 9.30, and an evening three hour session from 4.30pm until 7.30pm. In between, delegates go skiing to strengthen the muscles and resuscitate the brain.

“It may be called the ‘anaesthetic ski meeting’, but all delegates take the talks and workshops as seriously as the skiing. If you didn’t hear Professor Mervyn Maze’s superb lecture on ‘Neurocognitive deficits post anaesthesia’ then you can’t join in the discussion over dinner that evening. You don’t make that mistake again.”

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