Meeting Of Tyrolean Lift Co's Held

Around 160 guests – above all LH Deputy Josef Geisler, LH deputy Georg Dornauer and LR Mario Gerber – were happy to accept the invitation to the cable car meeting point. 

• Hörl: "It's time to put the fun of skiing back in the foreground!"
• Farewell to long-standing division and specialist group manager Josef Ölhafen

The event offered an opportunity to exchange ideas with politicians, representatives of the authorities and the Tyrolean cable car operators.

Prologue to winter 2022/2023

In his opening speech at the meeting point for cable cars, cable car chairman Franz Hörl emphasized that the industry is doing everything possible to put the fun of skiing back in the foreground. "The booking numbers are right, snow has fallen, people are really keen on skiing again after the last difficult winters and many guests are already arriving at Innsbruck Airport - we are ready," says Hörl, who also responded to the criticism and the difficult general conditions of the received in recent months. "If we look back a year, a lot has happened in the meantime: from the lockdown last Christmas to a spirit of optimism, which - see energy crisis - has presented us with new challenges, but has not taken our courage and confidence Has. Because our industry has mastered Corona and will now also master the crisis," says Hörl, who in the most recent statements by State

Environmental Attorney Johannes Kostenzer locates the next wave of attacks against the industry. "What I read here about chalet villages says a lot about the basic attitude of the state environmental attorney: If he demands a critical examination of the chalet villages, but not a categorical rejection, then that may well be factually justifiable. The fact that he denies us as an industry any possibility of further development and in our case does so categorically speaks volumes and is nothing more than measuring with double standards," says Hörl, who would like to put the positive forward and also focus on learning processes within the industry, see the topic of sustainability. “We are an innovative and also responsible industry that brings enormous joy to hundreds of thousands of people, winter day after winter day. Above all, today we tell a lot more about what we always took for granted, but didn’t reach the necessary extent outside,” says Hörl. 

After all, Austria's cable cars and pistes, which are snow-covered and groomed daily, consume only 0.3 percent of the country's total energy consumption and thus generate billions of euros for rural living spaces. 

"When it comes to renewable energies, we play in the top league of the domestic sectors and are already achieving values ​​that politicians actually only set as targets for 2030. And we have already been able to save 20 percent in energy over the past ten years and are ready as a collective contribution in the light of the current crisis, to add one or two percent more,” said Hörl. "It is also clear, however, that the globally unique offer will not be restricted: "It doesn't work without us, neither in securing our quality of life in rural areas, nor as the basis for regional value creation or as the cornerstone of all domestic tourism in its most sustainable form! "

Honors

The festive setting was used to thank the long-standing committee members Dkfm. Mario Stedile-Foradori, Mag. Hannes Parth, Walter Eisenmann and Hansjörg Kogler from the specialist group committee. As a token of gratitude and recognition, Hörl presented them with a certificate of honour.

Hörl also thanked the long-standing specialist group and division manager Josef Ölhafen, who has looked after the industry in these functions since 2009 and has now retired. “Anyone who is so intensely committed to a topic that carries it within them is not just a job, but rather a calling. This is particularly true in the case of Pepi Ölhafen. Dear Pepi, the success of our industry has many faces, many companions and many people who put their heart and soul into it. For decades, you were one of the most influential of these,” Hörl addressed appreciative words to the former managing director.