Angry response

After water report: Carinthian tourism furious!

Lake Wörthersee is said to have been certified as having "moderate" water quality - the proposed measures are now causing a stir.

(Bild: Tratnik Marcel)

Tourism is fuming. A report by the state of Carinthia, which proposes 34 measures to improve the water quality of Lake Wörthersee, has triggered a storm of indignation - now the economy is fighting back.

"I find it utterly astonishing how much time, energy and taxpayers' money state officials can invest in a project whose origins are completely unclear. Do the ladies and gentlemen in the responsible departments really have so much free time in addition to their other important tasks that they can devote themselves to such larifari projects?", asks WK division chairman Josef Petritsch after a 23-page report entitled "Wörthersee protection and utilization concept" by Department 12 - Water Management of the Office of the Carinthian Provincial Government was made public. "I demand - not least in view of the state's enormous and rising debt and the announcement that it also wants to save on tourism - full clarification of this scandalous piece of work. The last word is far from being spoken here!" announced Petritsch angrily.

Josef Petritsch no longer feels like laughing - he demands clarification!

(Bild: WKK/PEter Just)

34 measures to improve the water quality of Lake Wörthersee, from a ban on events to a summer closure for bog boats, are currently causing a stir in Carinthia. The official authors of the report came to the conclusion that the water quality at Lake Wörthersee is "moderate". However, according to the Chamber of Commerce, some of the proposed measures are "highly controversial". The proposals to close public lake access points, a ban on events such as water ski schools and a weekend or even summer ban on moor boats were particularly criticized: "With a particularly creative and practical proposal: 'The number of motorboats is reduced by only allowing boats with even boat numbers to sail on even days and only boats with odd boat numbers on odd days'," the Chamber of Commerce etches in a press release.

We reserve the right to take appropriate legal action for damage to reputation and credit as well as for damages

Josef Petritsch, Wirtschaftskammer-Spatenobmann

Claim for damages is pending
It is indeed bizarre: the state politicians speak of a "draft" and claim that it was neither developed in consultation with internal state experts nor defined in consultation with political representatives. "For the tourism industry - not only at Lake Wörthersee - wind force 12 has prevailed since then," the tourism experts make their position clear. Division chairman Josef Petritsch: "It is completely unacceptable that a few civil servants - apparently on their own time and with the support of an external service provider - have delivered a personally motivated, diligent task. The authors of this work seem to lack any understanding of the economic reality and the possible consequences of such negative propaganda in the middle of the summer tourist season. We reserve the right to take appropriate legal action for damage to reputation and credit as well as for damages!", says Petritsch angrily.

Own list of questions
The Chamber of Commerce's response: a separate list of questions to the state of Carinthia - including who commissioned the report, how many employees were involved, how much it cost taxpayers and what scientific principles were used.