Should I book a winter holiday, for instance for next season? Every third euro earned in the Tirol comes directly or indirectly from tourism, predominantly visitors from Germany and Italy, who spend around €8.4bn there every year. On the morning of 5 March, Iceland declared Ischgl a high-risk destination, in the same category as Wuhan and Iran. Haraldur Eyvinds Thrastarson, an IT manager who was concerned about infecting 600-plus colleagues, had a test after returning to Reykjavik. Friedrich later experienced only mild symptoms, but his friend was less lucky. Ischgl, an Austrian ski resort, has achieved tragic international fame: hundreds of tourists are believed to have contracted the coronavirus there and taken it home with them. Nicky Williams (left) and Lisa Busby, the day before the resort shut. Authorities in the Austrian state of Tyrol are facing a potential class-action lawsuit over their handling of a COVID-19 outbreak at the popular ski resort of Ischgl. Police at a roadblock stop a bus from driving out of Sankt Anton following the imposition of a quarantine due to a coronavirus outbreak, March 14, 2020, near Landeck, Austria. (Writing in the Daily Mail, columnist Jan Moir condemned skiers who had reportedly been playing a variation of beer pong, in which you spit a ball into a beer glass, with several players using the same ball. Neither he nor Schopf had visited a bar on their holiday. In Germany, which supplies Ischgl with most of its guests, the outbreak has been the subject of a diplomatic war of words between Austrian and German politicians, who accuse each other of negligence, as well as numerous front pages. He was a bit drunk and it became this game where we all had to. The venue, where young women in skimpy outfits dance on the tables, was so crowded that he remembers having to walk sideways to get around the bar. “And the virus would not have spread across Europe.”. All restaurants and huts are currently closed. He tried his best to distance himself from other passengers on the plane and self-isolated as soon as he arrived in the UK on the Sunday. / Harald Eisenberger, Tirol Werbung / Österreich Werbung See which ski resorts got the most snow & current ski conditions at your favorite Austria mountain. Mallender decided to join the class action because he believes the way the authorities handled the outbreak efficiently exported the virus abroad. The same rules apply as on public transport, meaning an FFP2 mask must be worn. Months later, an antibody test confirmed that he had had Covid-19. Maybe not everyone liked seeing that.”, But by the start of the second week of March, the fear that mishandling an oubreak of the virus could permanently damage the town’s reputation was at the forefront of the minds of senior officials and businessmen in Ischgl. By the evening of 3 March, Thrastarson was confirmed as one of an eventual 16 positive cases among the group. Outbreaks in northern Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland have all been traced back to skiers returning home from the Paznaun valley, and the devastating reach of the Ischgl cluster is likely to be considerably wider: an Austrian lawyer compiling a class action lawsuit against the Tirol region, alleging it failed in its public health duties, has gathered the signatures of more than 6,000 tourists from 47 countries who believe they caught the virus in Ischgl, including people from Canada, Cambodia and Zimbabwe. His hotel roommate, Hannes Schopf, 72, a journalist, got a call from his wife towards the end of their holiday, telling them to get out as soon as possible. Failures at Austrian ski resort ‘helped speed up spread' of Covid-19 in Europe Commission report into Ischgl outbreak identifies ‘momentous miscalculations’ made … The following measures are in place in Austria's ski resorts: FFP2 masks are mandatory in shops, on public transport, in cable cars, and in most other public spaces. Representative image. Delivered at 11.45pm, it came from an Icelandic tourist who informed the management that she and two family members who had stayed at the hotel the previous week had tested positive for Covid-19 on their return to Reykjavik. Find out more about Austrian cable car measures here. Friedrich believes there is a good chance his group caught the virus on the bus out. Staff cleaned their rooms, changed the bedding and checked in guests for another week. Kitzbuhel in the Tirol had also opened a run in the Resterhöhe area. For the off-season, the calm is nothing out of the ordinary. Restaurants can only offer takeout/delivery services. Tourists were advised to leave the valley “speedily” and go home. ovid-19, the “viral pneumonia of unknown cause” that Chinese officials first reported in Wuhan on 3 January, has transformed our way of life, upended geopolitics and precipitated an economic crisis of historic proportions. Subscribe to our free e-newsletter and receive the latest news, valuable information and special offers for your trip to Austria. So whilst some cable cars are open (please enquire beforehand), skiing is effectively only possible for locals. After lockdown, food and drinks will be consumed sitting at tables; no dancing/singing in crowds. “We are the cable car company with the highest turnover in Austria, by some distance,” says Alexander von der Thannen, 49, who heads the Ischgl Paznaun Tourist Association. “A lot of things have been written about Ischgl that aren’t true. The ski resort … A-1030 But Jackson threw caution to the wind: he had already spent more than £1,000 on the trip. Eleven days later, he was taken to hospital; by then, he was failing to put three words together without struggling for breath. At Alpine Ski Resort, Site of Austria's Biggest Covid-19 Outbreak, Record 42% Residents Have Antibodies: Study. What are the rules for cable cars / chairlifts?85% of lifts are not enclosed (chairlifts, tow lifts), which means there is a lower risk of infection than indoors. In the streets, posters advertise Top Of The Mountain concerts with A-list stars such as Rihanna and Elton John. But the key economic driver is the ski lifts, used by 17 million people every year. Yes. Give us a call Monday to Friday from 8am to noon. Our fathers and grandfathers worked the fields, and maybe we inherited their genes. Austria's ski resorts will operate for the final time this season on March 15 Credit: Lech Zurs am Arlberg Lucy Aspden , Online Ski Editor 13 March 2020 • 4:38am “The Austrians came across as calm and sensible.”. One of them, Dr Peter Kolba, who is also president of the Austrian Consumer Protection Association, tells me: “If Ischgl had been quarantined a week earlier, thousands of holidaymakers would not have been infected,” he says. In the first week of March, Charlie Jackson had an argument with his wife. Hotels are closed to leisure travellers/tourists. In general, there are toilets available at all cable car valley stations and at some top stations. Wien The snow is reliably powdery from November to May. In late April, a group of virologists came to the valley to mass-test the population and found that while more than 40% had developed Covid-19 antibodies, only 15% had had any symptoms. schgl is not just a party destination; it’s a party destination catering for people with money. People are advised to wash hands regularly and use contactless payments. A consumer rights group is taking legal action against the Austrian government over Covid-19 outbreaks at ski resorts in the western Tyrol region this … COVID19 safety measures in Austrias ski resorts. Find entry regulations here. / Philipp Reiter, Tourismusverband Wilder Kaiser We are active and out in the open air. “Please call me back or shut down your Kitz bar – or you will be to blame for the end of the season in Ischgl and possibly Tirol.”, The text, which was later leaked to an Austrian blog, came from Franz Hörl, deputy head of the Tirolean Chamber of Commerce, spokesman for the association of cable car operators and a member of the conservative Austrian People’s party (OVP). To an extent, the people who work in Ischgl have a point. The COVID-19 pandemic in Austria is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).In Austria, a pair of cases were confirmed on 25 February 2020.The cases involved a 24-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman who were travelling from Lombardy, Italy, and were treated at a hospital in … “It was packed,” says the retired banker, 56, from Farnborough, Hampshire, who was joining friends for a few days of skiing and partying. The 36-page legal document names 21 bar owners and local officials as potential suspects, though Kolba says the complaint is ultimately directed against the Austrian government and its “calculated export” of the virus. The sky is blue and the sun beats down on green meadows. When Nigel Mallender arrived in Ischgl on the afternoon of Tuesday 10 March, he headed straight to Schatzi bar. Eight glacier ski resorts were open for skiing and snowboarding with Covid-19 measures in place. Local people are reluctant to engage in conversation, let alone be interviewed. “By the time the bus got to Ischgl, it was standing room only and the bus was moving at walking pace through nose-to-tail traffic.” The sudden mass evacuation meant it took the bus, packed with around 25 people, seven and a half hours to get to Landeck, usually a 40-minute journey. Sometimes the entire dancefloor forms a conga and tramps to the bar across the road. Ski lifts continued to carry tourists up the mountain at half capacity. The woman had been with three groups of Icelandic tourists, 25 people in all, who knew each other and were staying across two hotels and a set of apartments, from 22-29 February. “Our cable car makes over €80m – the next one after that is Kitzbühel with €60m.” (In the curtailed 2019/20 season, the cable car company still had a turnover of €58.5m.) There will be no après-ski as we know it. The recruitment agent, 53, from Pangbourne in Berkshire, was due to catch a flight to Innsbruck for a three-day “boys’ holiday”, skiing in the Tirolean Alps. Could a small village really have gone on to infect the entire world? This article was amended on 17 September 2020. At the end of the journey, they exchanged numbers. Jackson was one of the lucky ones. “It felt like business as usual,” says Mallender, who spent about five hours at Schatzi. Yet the sense of unease unwittingly conveyed by Ischgl’s tourism slogan emblazoned on park benches, posters and ski lifts – “Relax. Smooth transit links are a big part of the appeal, and this efficient turnaround of visitors contributes to Ischgl’s profitability compared with other resorts: an airport-style travelator shuttles tourists through a tunnel from one side of town to the other. Police checked hotels and lodges and found dozens of rule-breakers, some of whom were ordered to take COVID PCR tests. Panicking, he hurried to the town centre and managed to jump on a bus to Landeck, where he could get a train to Innsbruck, the Tirol capital. Will there be après-ski this season?Currently, restaurants and huts are closed. The inquiry centres around reports a 36-year-old German barman at the Kitzloch pub who fell ill with COVID-19 in February. Skiers at Ischgl, one of the most popular ski resorts in Europe. Then there are the many apres-ski bars, where Jackson and other tourists party after a hard day on the slopes. The Trofana Alm bar has been torn down, to be rebuilt on the same site by November. In enclosed cabins, an FFP2 face mask must be worn and passenger numbers are reduced to 50%. This includes private accommodation like AirBnB. Ten million people? The Covid-19 test requirement makes skiing impractical for many. France: Ski lifts closed until at least the end of ... For further information about resorts head to our ski resort pages. Current situation, protective measures, entry requirements: everything you need to know for your holiday in Austria. Every third euro earned in the Tirol comes directly or indirectly from tourism, predominantly visitors from Germany and Italy, who spend around €8.4bn there every year. In queues, the minimum distance of 2 metres (6.5 ft) must be maintained and the face covering worn. It’s a wide, wide world….but not for skiers and riders this year. Haraldur Eyvinds Thrastarson (third from left) and friends in Ischgl: five of the eight got Covid-19. The woman added that she did not know if she had already been infectious in Ischgl, and that it was possible that she caught the virus on the journey home. Many accommodations are currently offering very flexible cancellation conditions. There are designer boutiques and five- and four-star hotels, restaurants selling wagyu beef burgers and bottles of champagne at €600. Three days after returning home on 7 March, Jackson developed a pain in his back and joints, and lost his sense of taste. tourists travelling in and out of the Paznaun valley. The facilities are well-run: Ischgl has 45 state-of-the-art ski lifts, three of which take you directly from the edge of town to the mountain. The 36-year-old who became the first person in Ischgl to test positive for Covid-19 was German, not Norwegian as an earlier version said. Resorts Closing in the Tirol as Negative Covid-19 Test Needed to Ski 16th February 2021 St Anton and Soelden have closed with others expected to follow suit. / Philipp Reiter. Earlier in the day, regional authorities had ordered all Ischgl’s bars to close “with immediate effect”; but on Tuesday night the ruling was not yet being policed. The focus on a frantic party scene has helped to distract from bigger decisions taken – or not taken – behind the scenes, the missed warnings and a key question: did the authorities prioritise economic factors over the health of residents and visitors? When I speak to Busby in early August, she still hasn’t recovered her sense of taste or smell, and is certain she had the virus, though neither she nor her friends were tested at the time. Covid-19, the “viral pneumonia of unknown cause” that Chinese officials first reported in Wuhan on 3 January, has transformed our way of life, upended geopolitics and precipitated an economic crisis of historic proportions. “By making everyone leave at the same time, they compounded the problem. Typically of local businessmen, Von der Thannen has several jobs: he is also the Tirolean Chamber for Commerce spokesman on tourism, managing director of the five-star Trofana Royal hotel and owns an apres-ski bar, Trofana Alm. Simply drop us an e-mail and we'll be happy to answer your questions: info@austria.info, If you’re in the UK, you can also call us at 00800 400 200 00* In early July, the blanket of snow on the mountains flanking Ischgl has melted into a couple of thin patches. Shortly before midnight on 4 March, Iceland’s top health authority sent a message to its counterpart in Vienna via the Early Warning and Response System (EWRS), a web-based platform linking public health authorities across the EU. All restaurants and huts are currently closed. I have a secondary residence in a ski area. At least 28 people who visited Ischgl in late February and early March died of Covid-19. He worked as a barman at Kitzloch, opposite Niki’s Stadl, where the Icelanders had also spent two evenings. How a small Spanish town became one of Europe's worst Covid-19 hotspots. By mid-March, it was clear that tourists travelling in and out of the Paznaun valley had been the key accelerators behind the first wave of the virus on the European continent. In addition, travel restrictions and quarantine rules for travel from abroad are in effect. Austrian ski resort made ‘momentous miscalculations’ which helped speed spread of Covid, report finds Helen Coffey @LenniCoffey Tuesday 13 October 2020 17:29 He and his friends had been visiting the town in the Paznaun valley, Austria, for the past nine years. “Maybe what we are seeing is also the culture of envy: we are too big, we grew too fast. Fear of being branded the “next Ischgl” helped to enforce lockdowns across central Europe, such is the stigma attached to the resort’s name. We must have pressed it 50 times that night. In early March, the Austrian ski resort of Ischgl became a COVID-19 epicenter, spreading the virus far and wide. Seven minutes later, Zangerl’s father, Peter, who owns Kitzloch, got a text message: “Dear Peter,” it read. In the case of the resort’s largest gondola lift, the Piz Val Gronda E5, this meant that up to 75 skiers at a time spent six minutes inside a closed cabin. On 4 March, after their first day’s skiing, his group of eight friends headed to a wooden-clad hut on the eastern side of town called Niki’s Stadl, after its hard-partying late owner, Niki Ganahl, a former skier on the Austrian national team turned musician, who died of a heart attack in 2015, aged 58. He believes that Europe has pointed the finger at Ischgl partly through resentment at its commercial success. Henrik Lerfeldt has fond memories of Kitzloch, a popular restaurant and bar in the Austrian ski resort town of Ischgl, where he partied several nights while on vacation three weeks ago. Send us a message and we will get back you as soon as we can. “We were completely stuck.”. Kolba sees things differently. My mate Declan got obsessed with pressing that button. He was here throughout.”. Cable cars have reopened. “A tough people, very resistant,” Von der Thannen recalls one scientist saying. “Guests who come for the skiing, who have booked a room – they are welcome,” he says. / Robert Pupeter, COVID19 safety measures at the hotel check-in in Austria's ski resorts, Tirol Werbung / Österreich Werbung The illusion that the clean alpine air would somehow inoculate people from a global pandemic would not dissipate until 2.15pm on Friday, when Mallender received a call from his hotel: “That’s when the bad disaster movie started.” At a press conference 15 minutes earlier, the Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, had announced that the entire Paznaun valley would be quarantined “with immediate effect”. Speaking on the phone from Hampshire, his voice quivers when he recalls leaving his family behind, unsure if he would see them again. In the streets, posters advertise Top Of The Mountain concerts with A-list stars such as Rihanna and Elton John. Most bars, cafes and restaurants are shut; only a few cyclists and hikers pass through the town. “They have this massive red button next to the DJ booth, like something out of a TV quiz show. The main purpose of the two main domains www.austria.info and www.austriatourism.com is the promotion of Austria as a holiday destination. Vordere Zollamtsstraße 13 It has also revealed a strain of puritanism among people who thought themselves tolerant liberals: because the virus thrives in social situations, nothing has enraged us more during lockdown than seeing people having fun in large numbers. Beer and Jägermeister shots are around half the price they are across the border in Switzerland, and in Niki’s Stadl they flow freely from 3pm until the early hours (the bar stays open until the last punter leaves). Jackson’s wife, Carol, felt Ischgl, the resort booked by the group, was a bit too close to the parts of northern Italy that had recently been shut down to contain the spread of a mystery flu-like illness. Mallender, who was staying in the neighbouring village of Galtür, rushed down the mountain, bundled his belongings into a suitcase and tried to book a taxi, to no avail. A group of skiers from Iceland reported Covid-19 symptoms on 3 March, and by 5 March the authorities were aware that a coronavirus outbreak was likely, according to Mr Rohrer. Lockdown has cost Ischgl around 25%-30% of its annual trade, but Von der Thannen is optimistic that the resort’s reputation won’t be tarnished permanently by its association with the virus. Ischgl resort has reportedly been linked to hundreds of COVID-19 cases in Germany, Iceland, Norway and Denmark as well as Austria. The woman added that she did not know if she had already been infectious in Ischgl, and that it was possible that she caught the virus on the journey home. We’ve polarised opinion, deliberately so. Some bars, including Schatzi and Trofana Alm, owned by Von der Thannen, kept their doors open and were busier due to the other closures. The compact nature of the place means you don’t need a car to get around. For the next four weeks, he felt utterly exhausted and was unable to work, often going to bed in the afternoon. Find entry regulations here. There will be no après-ski as we know it. His criminal complaint, submitted to Austria’s Federal Economic and Anti-Corruption Office in June, urges the state prosecutor to examine why venues such as Von der Thannen’s bar shut down so late, and the role they played in allowing the virus to spread. The recruitment agent, 53, from Pangbourne in Berkshire, was due to catch a flight to Innsbruck for a three-day “boys’ holiday”, skiing in the Tirolean Alps. The venue, where young women in skimpy outfits dance on the tables, was so crowded that he remembers having to walk sideways to get around the bar. AN AUSTRIAN ski resort that has been dubbed the 'Ibiza of the Alps' has been accused of being the "breeding ground" for coronavirus. The same day, an emergency meeting of the corona crisis task force was called in Ischgl for 1pm, with the Icelandic cases to be discussed at a meeting of health authorities for the Tirol region. Ischgl, one of the most popular ski resorts in Europe, is what Jackson calls “a boyish kind of place”. I am not after financial gain, but there needs to be an open investigation.”, Other visitors report similar problems getting out of the valley. Date 30.09.2020 Meanwhile, business owners in Ischgl say they have been scapegoated and that reports of orgiastic scenes are gross exaggerations. Austria – click here Norway – click here Slovakia ... Ireland - Click here For more information on our Freshtracks and Mountain Tracks Covid-19 promise, please read our Covid-19 FAQs. On 22 March their German driver texted to say he had tested positive for Covid-19. If travelling from abroad, you do however need to adhere to all entry regulations (find them here). Are ski huts open?All ski huts are closed during lockdown. But none of the people I interviewed for this article can recall such a drinking game.) / Michael Werlberger, Tirol Werbung COVID-19: Austria ski resort finds 96 foreigners in breach of coronavirus rules. We recommend you contact your preferred establishment to discuss the options. Police began to enforce the ban the following day, but restaurants and hotel bars remained open on Wednesday and Thursday. And skiing, Von der Thannen points out, keeps you healthy. If successful, the Austrian government could be liable for hundreds of millions of euros in settlement compensation, for signatories including Charlie Jackson, Johann Friedrich, Nigel Mallender and Lisa Busby. A packed bar by the main cable car station, above Ischgl in February. The posters still advertise apres-ski parties and lapdancing, but the sound systems are quiet. Two days later, Busby and her friends started to feel unwell. In the statement, which is still online, the state medical director, Franz Katzgraber, said it was probable that the Icelandic tourists had caught the virus on the plane from Munich to Reykjavik: “From a medical perspective it seems not very likely that infections took place in Tirol.” The response of an entire region now leaned precariously on a final half-sentence in the Icelandic tourist’s email – the suggestion that she might have caught Covid-19 from an Italian skier.