Dispute over expansion

Hotelier closes Rudolfshütte and Weißsee cable car

Wilfried Holleis closes the hotel and cable car after years of bickering over the expansion.

(Bild: Fotomontage/Bilder: Weißsee, Holleis)

It will be dark at Weißsee in Uttendorf/Pinzgau next Sunday! The Zell hotelier Wilfried Holleis is closing the cable car to the Weißsee and the popular Rudolfshütte mountain hotel without further ado. A long dispute over the expansion of the hotel has prompted the entrepreneur to do so.

The Enzingerboden will be the end of the line from next week! The cable car and the Rudolfshütte mountain hotel are closing. This was announced today by entrepreneur Wilfried Holleis. The hotelier from Zell am See, who owns the companies, is pulling the plug at the end of the season. "20 years of management and 25 million euros in investments at Weißsee are more than enough for me and my family.

Over the past decades, Holleis has expanded the Rudolfshütte (2300 meters) and turned it into a three-star-plus hotel with 250 beds. Most recently, he wanted to increase the number of beds by another 160. A building shell has already been erected. However, a veto was issued in June by the State Environmental Ombudsman's Office (LUA), which objected to the decision for an environmental impact assessment for the extension. 

In an interview with the "Krone" newspaper, Holleis denounced this decision: "The LUA has caused us massive problems, you can't do business like this." However, the entrepreneur, who runs four hotels at three locations in Austria and abroad, is also disappointed with the municipality and the state. Politicians have always been cautious when it comes to Weißsee.

Mountain railroad in deficit, hotel economically successful
"I don't want to make a secret of the fact that we would have needed significant financial support from the state for the coming winter season," says the hotelier. The ageing cable car in particular is causing economic problems, with the most recent deficit, before depreciation, amounting to 1.4 million euros.

The occupancy rate of the hotel is over 100 percent, but the closure of the cable car no longer makes economic sense for me if the expansion of the Rudolfshütte is completed for the reasons mentioned above," emphasizes Hollleis.

Holleis does not yet know what will happen after the closure. Anything is conceivable, from liquidation of the companies to handover. "We offered everything to the municipality for 1 euro - but: nothing," says the disappointed hotelier.

Some of the 60 employees work at the hotel. Holleis will employ them in other businesses as far as possible. Around a third are cable car employees.