Owners Of Troubled Grossglockner Bergbahnen Heiligenblut Look To Recovery Plans
As reported , the future of the Heiligenblut ski area remains unclear. While the Großglockner Bergbahnen recently demanded a financial injection from tax revenues to ensure its continued existence , the state again spoke out in favor of selling it to a group of investors. Their representative, the lawyer Ferdinand Lanker, was introduced to the mountain railways at a meeting on Monday, March 11th in the Carinthian country house. The names of the investors remained unknown.
According to their own statements, the municipality of Heiligenblut and the state of Carinthia will not make any financial contribution to saving the mountain railways and the ski area and will therefore no longer take part in the further decision-making process.
Yesterday evening, the owners decided to take the following approach in order to ensure the sustainable preservation of the mountain railways for the locals and employees as well as to secure winter tourism in the region:
There are now two possible routes to survival:
Investor review and possible sale
The previously unknown investors must contact the owners by Monday, March 18, 2024, 6:00 p.m. in order to quickly check their intentions and creditworthiness and then immediately enter into discussions.
The “ultimatum” issued by the state and the municipality last week could not be accepted because neither the possible buyers and their skills in running a ski area nor their creditworthiness were known. The current owners' requirements for a sale were also clear to the legal representative Dr. Lankan not known in detail.
A corresponding letter requesting the necessary explanations in the sense already mentioned was sent to the investors' legal representative, Dr. Lankar sent. The owners of the Grossglockner Bergbahnen Heiligenblut would then immediately enter into discussions. Since the previous interlocutors from the state and municipality only found or announced the new interested parties last week and the security of employees and operational processes require a quick decision, time is of the essence.
Decision to continue independent operation by reducing costs and systems
If no agreement is reached on a sale or the orderly handover of the Grossglockner ski area cannot be secured, the previous owners decided yesterday to secure the operation in a form that is economically justifiable.
The official overnight stay figures from the tourism association dramatically illustrate the problem facing the mountain railways and the entire region and are the reason for these unfortunately necessary measures.
Over the last 15 years, due to a lack of initiatives in Heiligenblut and therefore a lack of suitable accommodation providers, overnight stays have fallen by 40%. Of course, these guests are also missing - in an almost identical percentage - in the ski area, which is why unfortunately adjustments are needed here too.
In addition, in the area of advertising and marketing, there has been a lot of focus on the topic of the national park region and, in our opinion, this has not been combined sufficiently with the attractive mountain railway and ski offerings.
But only if there are enough accommodation providers and therefore holiday guests in the valley in winter can the mountain railways act in an economically justifiable manner so that jobs and operations and thus winter tourism can be maintained in the region.
In order to secure the ski area sustainably, the owners believe that the number of facilities and thus the costs must also be reduced. In recent years the annual loss has been between 0.5 and 1 million euros. In the event of an independent continuation, the specific measures would first have to be examined, but in any case the industrious railways would be affected from a financial perspective.
From the owners' point of view, only by reducing the effort and costs by closing parts of the system can the liftco' be secured in the long term.
