Holes are often underestimated – not least in terms of their tourist importance. And there is no need to mention Loch Ness, where the Gaelic term loch means a pretty lake. All over the world there are holes that attract tourists. Whether it’s the huge stalactite caves of Postojna in Slovenia, whether artificially dug glacier caves in Iceland, volcanic craters in Sicily or ugly lignite holes in Lusatia: there are always people who want to go into the hole or at least look.
Anyone who now thinks that this is the human fascination with nothingness is mistaken. Because the opposite is the case, the hole is only the frame for quite interesting things, from stalagmites to bubbling magma to bucket wheel excavators.
But there is also a hole that is causing worry lines on the foreheads of hoteliers in the Alpine valleys in particular. We are talking about the “Jännerloch”, which is particularly endemic in ski areas. What is meant by this is the time between Epiphany and the first carnival holidays, when traditionally many hotel beds and ski lift seats remain empty because nobody is on vacation.
Before the pandemic, the January hole had fared similar to the ozone hole: it had closed. Even in the meager weeks of winter tourism, there were enough people who were willing to take a winter holiday because of the cheaper prices and supposedly empty slopes. But now, as the alpine tourism makers announce, the January hole is back with full force and Omikron, or rather the German classification of Austria as a high-risk area, is to blame. Hotels empty, slopes empty, cash register empty.
The Tyrolean cable car lobbyist and politician Franz Hörl complained to ORF about a 30 percent drop in the season so far. He looks “with wet eyes at Switzerland, which expects an increase of 25 percent above the five-year average”. And with far fewer security measures, he added. Well, “luck is a bird”, one would like to call out to him. For years, the Swiss had come to much cheaper Austria for skiing holidays.
But you don’t have to shed any tears either, because the bookings for February and March have been good so far, as various tourism associations announced unanimously. So let’s leave the church in the village and use the January hole we were given for a few days of skiing – but without blocking it again immediately!