Cirkel Supply: premium skiwear rental
We specialise in skiwear rental, enabling tourists to rent - instead of buy - premium ski clothing that they only wear for one week each year.
Tourists find us in pre-arrival comms from their hotel (or one of our other tourism partners who promote our service). Arriving on our website, our customer chooses their favourite outfit and selects their dates.
We deliver directly to the customer's hotel (or preferred delivery point) and pick it up afterwards, making our service ultimately convenient.
What issue does your project address, and why do you want to tackle it?
We reduce overconsumption in Swiss tourism by serving MORE people, with LESS clothing. A business model lifecycle assessment estimates our service emits 76% less CO2 than a linear sales alternative.
60% of skiers already rent skis, indicating they don’t ski often enough to justify ownership. These ‘light usage’ tourists are perfectly suited to rent ski clothing as well. Before Cirkel’s launch, there was not a clothing rental option that was premium and convenient enough to encourage adoption.
What is your project about and how does it make tourism in the Alps future-proof?
There is no silver bullet - we need an ecosystem of low-impact solutions across transport, lodging, activities and services. These solutions need to be more attractive than traditional offers and mutually supportive (using one solution encourages the use of another).
Here’s an example of Cirkel slotting into this ecosystem: renting clothing reduces the tourist’s waste, but also enables the tourist to travel light or travel by train because they don’t need to carry heavy bags of ski gear.
How do you measure your project's success?
The larger we build our rental business, the less ski tourists will purchase clothing that sits in a wardrobe for most of the year. Therefore, our success is measured by the number of happy customers we help to rent.
We aim to make our rental service the 1st choice for infrequent skiers visiting the Alps so that we reduce the impact of ski tourism and lower cost barriers of accessing nature. KPI’s include: users served, customer satisfaction, number of tourism partners, improving LCA results.
Who are the people behind the project and what is your secret to a great collaboration?
We bring a breadth of experience from the outdoor, fashion, and ski rental industries. Our different approaches - such as, attention to detail vs. a sense of urgency - make us a well balanced team to take rental to the next level.
Our shared values include environmental stewardship and a passion for skiing and biking in the Swiss Alps. Having grown up in adventurous families, we understand how exploring mountains through sport results in a deeper connection and regard for nature.
