The snow cannons are firing away at full bore up on the slopes, while down below in the center of the Austrian Alpine village of Maria Alm, a few last-minute repairs are underway. But inside the four-star establishment Hotel Eder, Sepp Schwaiger is sitting dejectedly. “It’s a tragedy,” says Austria’s 2019 hotelier of the year.
The 39-year-old operator of two luxury boarding houses in Maria Alm has just learned of the decision from Vienna that hotels and restaurants must remain closed over Christmas and New Year’s. That means that Schwaiger, the scion of a well-established hotelier family, has little choice but …
