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Feldberg (dpa / lsw) - There is no more snow than it has been for a long time and the weather is nice - but the lifts on the Feldberg are still, hotels and guesthouses are orphaned due to the corona.
“We last had such a winter season ten years ago, and now we cannot take advantage of the great winter sports conditions - that's sad,” says the mayor of Feldberg, Johannes Albrecht.
Since the turn of the year there have been ideal conditions for winter sports in the largest ski area in the Black Forest.
A snow cover of more than one and a half meters was measured on the Feldberg on Monday.
The municipality of Feldberg with 1900 inhabitants counted around 700,000 overnight stays in 32 hotels, 156 holiday homes and 28 communal accommodations in 2019.
Together with St. Blasien and Todtnau, she is a partner in the Feldberg lift network with 14 lifts.
The turnover of this core network amounts to eight million euros in normal times.
This turnover is now lost.
Altogether, operators of 41 ski lifts with more than 65 kilometers of slopes belong to the association.
For the ski lift operators, restaurateurs and municipalities around the highest mountain in Baden-Württemberg, the corona restrictions are a financial catastrophe, says Albrecht.
"That is why the November and December aid must now also flow - based on the average turnover of several reference years."
The words of the politicians should now be followed by deeds.
Although there have not yet been any bankruptcies, the companies urgently need liquidity.
Even in these times, the hotels paid staff to keep their houses running technically and to cope with the snow masses.
Albrecht: "You can't shut everything down."
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According to him, the tourism communities themselves urgently need support.
"With the tourist tax, we do not have the most important source of income," explains Albrecht.
"Politics mustn't let us down, after all, we also have a function as a local recreation area, as a refuge for mental and physical health."
For the time being, the municipalities on the Feldberg had groomed trails and cleared hiking trails on their own account - they shouldn't be left with the costs involved.
According to the Corona Ordinance, “transport facilities belonging to sports facilities”, such as ski lifts, are generally closed to the public.
But operators can rent their lift to several people in a household by the hour.
In the Swabian Alb, this means at least some turnover for the lift operators.
Richard Häberle from the Laichingen ski lift in the Alb-Donau district reports that he has inquiries for the next three weeks.
He rents the ski lift on the Swabian Alb for 150 euros an hour to families.
If the catchment area of the lift is otherwise within a radius of 60 kilometers, skiers would come to you from more than 200 kilometers away, he reports.
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Häberle is convinced of the lift rental offer.
"Before that, the toboggan slope was completely overcrowded and the public order office and police had to send many people back home."
Now everything is in order and the distances can be kept.
Regarding rental options, he says: “That helps us”.
Nevertheless, he only makes a fraction of the turnover that would be possible.
On Monday there was fresh snow again, the slope could accommodate a large number of skiers.
The offer is very popular in the Allgäu.
For example, the Karsee ski lift near Wangen in the Allgäu recently lured skiers down the freshly snow-covered slopes for hours.
In the Bavarian Allgäu, the operator of the Gohrersberg ski lift in Kreuzthal (Oberallgäu district), right on the border with Baden-Württemberg, is struggling with the ski lift ban.
He had a legal opinion drawn up that concluded that he shouldn't be banned from operating the lift, says operator Rudi Holzberger.
He would therefore like to start his lift again in the coming days.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210126-99-169305 / 3
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