Ski pistes go for a song

Plenty of snow, but in need of an upgrade; Erner Galen's ski area ernergalen.ch

For those in the market for a ski resort, Erner Galen in southern Switzerland has an extremely attractive price tag: it's free.

But there’s a catch – the new owner is expected to keep on 12 staff and pay for renovations.

The main reason the commune – or rather its ski lift company – can no longer afford to run the operation is because it needs to invest SFr1.5 million ($1.23 million) to renew its equipment.

Health and safety regulations require the chair lift to be regularly upgraded. And repairs have to be carried out if the area wants to renew its operating licence. This alone will cost SFr700,000, reckons company president Heinz Seiler.

Seiler’s phone has been ringing off its hook since he placed the advertisement in the prestigious Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper last week.

“Of course, it would have been great if the calls had been mostly from potential buyers than journalists, rather than the other way round!” Seiler told swissinfo.

The idea to give away the commune’s 20 kilometres of pistes, four lifts and snow machines has already borne fruit – five potential buyers are due to meet Seiler in the near future.

“Most of them are Swiss but one is from abroad,” revealed Seiler.

“Some are private individuals, who want to help save the resort. Then there are others who think it’s a simple way of earning money and lastly a firm, which wishes to invest in tourism in the region,” he explained.

Tourists staying away

The business usually makes enough to cover its costs but is not a money-spinner, especially as snow has been thin on the ground throughout Switzerland.

Not that the resort was affected by a lack of powder; its pistes are located between 1,200 and 2,300 metres above sea level.

“We had a very good winter. We even have one-and-a-half metres of snow at the moment!” Seiler said.

What the missing snow in other parts of the country did was to dampen tourists’ enthusiasm for winter sports in general and Erner Galen was caught in the fallout. Losses this season amounted to about SFr200,000.

It’s not every day that a going concern is offered for a symbolic price in Switzerland, which is perhaps why the offer attracted considerable media attention.

This was confirmed by Rudolf Walser, chief economist at economiesuisse, the Swiss Business Federation. The country’s largest umbrella organisation represents 30,000 businesses.

“Such cases do not occur often [in the public sector] and not at all in private companies,” Walser told swissinfo.

“Normally in the market economy an unsuccessful company has to vanish from the landscape.”

In other words, survival of the fittest is what counts but Erner Galen has at the very least found a way of distinguishing itself from other ailing skiing areas in Switzerland.

swissinfo, Faryal Mirza

In brief

Erner Galen has 2,400 beds for tourists and offers pistes from 1,200 to 2,300 metres above sea level.

The commune has 540 inhabitants, the majority of whom depend on the tourist industry.

The ski season in Galen is due to end on April 9, Easter Monday.

Key facts

There are 650 mountain transport and ski lift companies in Switzerland.
With 11,000 employees, they are a key economic factor in mountain regions.
The companies have a combined annual turnover of approximately SFr840 million, of which around 25% is reinvested in maintaining or purchasing new infrastructure.