Large new hotels are planned around the Tegernsee.
That triggers a lot of criticism.
The Tourism Advisory Board believes this is wrong.
You need the extra capacity to stop the bed loss.
Tegernseer Tal
- The challenges were extreme, nevertheless the Advisory Board of Tegernseer Tal Tourismus (TTT) draws an overall positive balance after three years in office. "With joy and pride" the advisory board looks back on the development of the TTT in the past three years, explains Ludwig Klitzsch (Klinik im Alpenpark) as chairman of the committee that advises the TTT. A new advisory board will be appointed in November. Klitzsch and his colleagues take this as an opportunity to summarize. Cooperation during the crisis worked well, the press release states: "The shareholders, management and advisory board were in close contact and unbureaucratic help was set up at the local level to revitalize tourism."
The Advisory Board is dissatisfied with the way in which the second lockdown was handled by politicians at the federal level.
In Klitzsch's opinion, the hotel and catering industry could have opened earlier, as happened in Switzerland.
In March, the advisory board turned to the government in an emergency appeal.
The advisory board makes it clear that subsequent generations would have to pay the bill for the generous subsidies and loss benefits.
“Unprecedented shortage of staff” as a result of the lockdown
And a lot of sand got into the machine: "Too many employees have turned their backs on the industry in the long months of the lockdown, and as a result, the companies are now struggling with an unprecedented staff shortage."
But the pandemic is also showing encouraging effects.
"During the crisis, new, younger and well-off customers discovered the Tegernsee Valley for themselves," states the advisory board.
This is also noticeable in retail.
"We are optimistic that we can win and keep many of these new guests for the Tegernsee Valley in the long term," says perfumery operator and adviser Hildegard Bayerschmidt.
More appreciation for tourism is required
Above all, the committee calls for more appreciation for tourism.
The latter is increasingly being made responsible for problems that he has neither caused nor influenced.
“That has to stop,” says Vice-Chairman Bernhard Kaiser.
It aims at the long-running topics of traffic and living space.
Tourism is not the cause of these problems, but rather the one affected by the misery.
The collapse caused by day trippers is just as damaging to tourism as it gets on the nerves of local residents, explains Sven Scheerbarth, director of the hotel "Das Tegernsee". The advisory board welcomes measures for parking space management and improvement of local public transport, but also recommends an expert opinion to examine all possibilities for improvement. In the considerations, unpleasant things must also be addressed, such as the burden of guest traffic to Austria. It is not acceptable that hosts from the neighboring country advertise a toll-free journey through the Tegernsee valley.
Unlike the day-trippers, the overnight guests only make up a small part of the traffic, which suffocates the valley, explains the advisory board. It would be “a complete fallacy” if the creation of new beds were hindered in order to reduce traffic and housing shortages.
New buildings needed to compensate for lost beds
With this, the advisory board takes a position on the various criticisms of the fact that a number of large hotel complexes are being planned around See.
In the opinion of the entrepreneurs, the additional capacity is urgently needed to replace beds that have already been lost and because of the foreseeable closure of other smaller businesses.
"The Advisory Board welcomes the new hotel projects, with which at least a little more than 1000 beds could be created again."
The advisory board calculates that more than 1,400 beds were lost around the lake between 2011 and 2020.
In 1991 the valley recorded almost 50 percent more overnight stays with 2.33 million overnight stays than in 2019 with 1.55 million.
Without new beds, according to the advisory board, “we will lose the critical mass that we need to maintain the valued tourist infrastructure at Tegernsee”.
Creation of living space required
The creation of living space for locals and local workers is no less important, says advisory board member Korbinian Kohler (Hotel Bachmair Weissach).
The decision of the municipality of Bad Wiessee to oblige operators of new hotels to create living space is a step in the right direction.
From the point of view of the Advisory Board, that alone is not enough.
The municipalities would also have to create more affordable housing.