Ski-Alpine: Ski lift on Marcel Hirscher’s local mountain in financial turmoil

Olympic champion Marcel Hirscher’s ski lift on the local mountain faces an uncertain future. As the business magazine “trend” reported on Friday, the Kopfbergbahn in Annaberg-Lungötz, the Salzburg home town of the ski star, fights for survival. The mayor admitted economic problems in the APA discussion, but there was no threat of an end.

According to the trend report, 250,000 trips with the 1,053-metre-long quad chairlift would be necessary to cover costs. Last year, however, the figure was only 150,000. It was only with an emergency action that local hoteliers and the municipality had raised the missing 100,000 euros before the start of the season and had just averted a standstill of the Kopfbergbahn. According to “trend”, there is also an urgent need for investment in the modernisation of lifts and a new snowmaking system.

The mayor of Annaberg, Josef Schwarzenbacher (ÖVP), confirmed the figures quoted in the APA interview, but did not see the situation as dramatic by any means:”Things are not going as well as they could. But there’s no end to this season’s operation is assured until the end of the season, and the winter is going well in view of the snow situation:” We don’t expect any departures this year because of the low altitude – the valley station is less than 800 metres high – but the village is dependent on a good snowmaking system.

“According to Schwarzenbacher,”appropriate concepts from tourism and business are on the table. The Kopfbergbahn in Annaberg, where Marcel Hirscher’s father Ferdinand runs a ski school, belongs to Dachstein West GmbH. The lift company includes the gondola lifts, chairlifts and drag lifts on the Salzburg side of the ski area. On the Upper Austrian side, the railways belong to Dachstein Tourismus AG – and are therefore largely owned by the state.

Around ten percent of Salzburger Dachstein West GmbH is owned by the municipality and a further nine percent by the Annaberg-Lungötz Tourist Board:”On the Salzburg side, around eight million euros will be invested in the next three to four years, and around 1.9 million euros are earmarked for the Kopfbergbahn alone,”Schwarzenbacher said. For example, a new storage pond for the snow cannons is planned.

According to trend, the last available balance sheet from 2016 for Dachstein West GmbH showed losses of more than 4.2 million and a balance sheet over-indebtedness of euro. It was not until 2014 that the state of Salzburg had invested 7 million 1.5 billion was invested in the modernization of the plants and an impending insolvency was averted. The mayor of Annaberg has high hopes for the forthcoming merger of the company with the lifts on the Upper Austrian side:”Only one company for the whole ski resort would be desirable”.

Schwarzenbacher doesn’t believe that the stamp “Olympic champion Marcel Hirscher” could bring a turnaround to the Kopfbergbahnen:”Its advertising value is certainly enormous, but it’s difficult to put figures on it” After all, the six-time World Cup winner would provide for many visitors from Holland in the town thanks to his Dutch mother.