Corona presents the traditional raft trip with great challenges - this also applies to the rafting company Seitner from Wolfratshausen.
The future of the company "hangs by a thread".
Wolfratshausen
- wet and happy raft trips from Wolfratshausen to Munich: This is a living tradition, the best advertisement for the international rafting town and, last but not least, the economic basis for three family businesses in the district.
Monika Heidl-Seitner heads the office of the smaller of the two Wolfratshausen-based companies.
Corona in Bavaria: The future of the Seitner rafting company "hangs by a thread"
The 51-year-old now states: “It's five to twelve.” The future of the company, whose fortunes her father Franz Seitner (77) has been directing in family tradition since the early 1980s, “hangs by a thread”.
The rafting company Franz Seitner, in addition to the senior boss and daughter Monika, also her brother Anderl and - when it is busy - a dozen employees.
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“We have our backs to the wall”: Monika HeidlSeitner (51) heads the office of Franz Seitner's rafting company in Wolfratshausen.
© Sabine Hermsdorf-Hiss
As is well known, the lockdown due to the corona virus tied the wooden companion to the shore last year, together the three rafting families canceled the 2020 season completely.
To this day, that means zero sales.
Traditionally it always starts on May 1st, but Heidl-Seitner is under no illusions.
Although her gut feeling says that the vaccine tsunamis and millions of rapid tests that have been announced will help ease the situation, the 51-year-old cannot turn her head off, of course.
Around 60 people close together on a raft - fun, music and toast to cosiness: "Nobody really believes that at the moment."
Consequences of the corona pandemic: zero turnover for rafting operations in the 2020 season
Your tax advisor has calculated: "At least 40 rafts would have to go on Minga this year, then the costs would be covered - only the costs and that based on the figures from 2019," emphasizes Heidl-Seitner.
After 40 raft trips, her family would not have earned a single euro.
120 to 140 trips are common in a good season.
She doesn't make a murder pit out of her heart: “We have our backs to the wall.” The day when father, daughter and son have to make a serious decision is not far off.
“The reserves for which our father stood on the raft for over 50 years have almost been used up.
Corona has cost us a high five-digit amount so far.
Understandably, when my father was 77, my father no longer wanted to take out a loan in order to hand over an indebted business to us, ”says the 51 year old.
In the worst case, “our generation company will no longer exist”.
Corona in Bavaria: Dramatic situation for rafting - "Stand with your back to the wall"
The raftsman's daughter admits that due to flooding, no raft can ever leave Weidach - but that is calculable.
“There are always days like this, sometimes for a week or two.” But a total failure?
“No, even in the Second World War and in the immediate post-war period, rafts went to Munich,” she knows from the stories of her father Franz. But now the second season in a row is even threatened.
There is a lack of "planning security for us and our customers as well as the possibility of implementing hygiene measures on our rafts without breaking the characteristic of a raft trip".
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Carefree raft trip: The photo was taken by Roland Preitnacher, who was born in Munich and has lived in South Africa since 1966.
Front left Sebastian Seitner, the grandfather of Monika Heidl-Seitner.
At that time he was in charge of the timber company of the only Wolfratshausen rafting company at the time, headed by his brother Franzl Seitner.
© Private
The family dealt intensively with the subject of the hygiene concept, but had to find out again and again that many things are not possible for logistical or technical reasons.
“We are simply not an excursion steamer on which you can carry out the appropriate installations.” For example, a company from Berlin offered their help: “They wanted to install special plastic panels, i.e. numerous transparent partitions, permanently on the raft.
Corona in Bavaria: rafting company is looking for a rescue option - so far without success
Equipped with an elaborate ball bearing construction that compensates for the movement of the tree trunks on the water. ”What the resourceful company in the federal capital did not know until a telephone conversation with Heidl-Seitner: Each raft is released after arriving at the central site in Munich-Thalkirchen completely dismantled and transported back to Wolfratshausen in individual parts by truck.
Fixed plexiglass panes including ball bearing constructions "are therefore unfortunately not an option".
With eagle eyes, the Seitners have looked for a lifebuoy - so far without success.
The dilemma: “Unfortunately we are only three family businesses that have been doing rafting in this way for many generations,” says Heidl-Seitner.
“We don't have a large umbrella organization that represents the interests of its members.
All decisions have to be made by ourselves, with the three raft masters having to decide everything from the gut. "
During one of the numerous phone calls, she learned from the government of Upper Bavaria that a rafting company was "exotic".
In other words: "There is still no concrete classification of the rafting industry with regard to the hygiene concepts or other legal requirements that integrate us into a precisely defined area." Finally, the hygiene concept for tourism service providers was based on the keyword "River and Maritime shipping in excursion traffic ".
Corona in Wolfratshausen: Dramatic situation for rafting company Seitner - call for help to politicians so far in vain
The only thing that politicians have achieved over the winter is that the raft trips have been on the so-called since January.
"Positive list" of the Bavarian Ministry of Health would be mentioned: "as a prohibited operation somewhere between brothels and cold studios".
Heidl-Seitner can't find anything funny about the whole thing.
“We are desperately looking for a solution that will ensure the continued existence of the rafting business.
As lone fighters, we have tried to draw attention to ourselves with numerous letters to leading politicians - unfortunately in vain. ”Apart from comforting words and references to the existing financial aid,“ unfortunately little or nothing came back ”.
“We are a small family business, we don't have a specialist here who researches around the clock who can help us in what form or which pot is suitable for us.
As a layperson, you read your way through all the publications, make comparisons, speak to your tax advisor - and resign yourself. ”The 51-year-old asks herself:“ What use are deferrals or installment payments in tax matters if not a single cent comes in for a long time?
It doesn't matter what the help is called. "
"It can't be that seasonal businesses like us have their backs to the wall because we don't fit the norm"
November aid, December aid, bridging aid one to three: “Certainly very helpful if you don't have a seasonal business whose only source of income is in the months of May to September.
All the help is of no use if you fall through the cracks and cannot claim your running costs. "
Heidl-Seitner is slowly talking himself into a rage: “It can't be that seasonal businesses like us have our backs to the wall because we don't fit the norm and our income is inevitably limited to the 'wrong months' of the year.
No family business can survive two years without any income.
I am also thinking of other small family businesses that fail, such as ski lifts or mountain huts. "
She has to consider: “There are so many small companies that stand for Bavaria and make Bavaria what it represents in terms of tradition, culture and tourism.
It cannot be that precisely these businesses, which many tourists and locals associate with Bavaria and which are heavily geared towards the seasons, are facing extinction after all their reserves have been used up - just because the state aid is rigidly geared towards 'normal' businesses. "
Raft trips in Corona times: rafting operation Seitner is not giving up hope for the 2021 season
The principle of hope remains.
Hope for a 2021 season that will allow at least 40 trips.
And the hope that someone in the city, in the district, but above all state and federal politicians, will not only regretfully take note of the plight of the rafting companies, "but act and find a solution in the existing regulations on Corona aid" that Ensure the survival of the centuries-old craft.
"We are not Lufthansa or TUI," says Heidl-Seitner.
But the three rafting companies in the district are a "flagship for tourism in the region" and employers.
The companies cannot bite of honorary titles such as “International Rafting City”, polished brass plaques on the Wolfratshauser “Walk of Fame” or the fact that the passenger raft trips on the Isar and Loisach have been registered as a cultural form in the Bavarian register of intangible cultural heritage in 2020. "
Like her brother Anderl, who has been going down the Isar for 30 years, Monika Heidl-Seitner also has a second mainstay.
She works in the Wolfratshausen town hall.
But she has grown together with rafting for as long as she can remember.
The 51-year-old does not want to imagine that this family tradition will end.
"But when there are no more reserves, then there are no more reserves - then you have to put the rudder down and take the rip cord."
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(cce)