New children’s hotel in South Tyrol – Travel

Black-and-white photos from the past hang in the passageway to the spa area. One shows a cottage by the lake, with a few guests in folding chairs squinting in the sun. It all started so tranquilly, in 1957, when the first Italian tourists came over the Brenner Pass and turned left at the first opportunity in their VW Beetle, into the Puster Valley. Pension Lido was the name of the little house in the village of Ehrenburg. It belonged to Maria and Josef Falkensteiner, who called it that because they had been to Venice on a short honeymoon – “and because we in our family have always thought differently,” as their son Erich Falkensteiner says today. He was born in this little house, which soon became a hotel, and spent his childhood and youth there.

His parents were laughed at for opening their accommodation on a lake off the main road when other hosts in the valley received holidaymakers where they could drive straight up. But success proved the Falkensteiners right. The little house by the lake has grown into a holiday empire with 30 hotels and apartment complexes in seven countries and 2,000 employees.

Erich Falkensteiner, born in 1958, entered the business at the age of 19. He has a clear idea of ​​how it works: “You always have to offer something new,” he says: the first house on the lake, the first house with an indoor pool in the Puster Valley, the first South Tyrolean hotel chain. And now the first house with a wave on the roof.

Do you really need all these offers for a successful family holiday?

At the point where the small Pension Lido once stood, a gigantic hotel complex now swings around the lake: the Falkensteiner Family Resort Lido, which between its original state as a guesthouse and the provisional full-growth as a family resort was also known as the Ehrenburger Hof – and thus the fashions and historical development thrusts of the South Tyrolean hotel industry are exemplary. The gabled roofs of the Ehrenburger Hof can still be seen under the gravel of the new roof construction, which was literally and philosophically imposed on the old hotel. In the fresh air above the third floor and therefore christened “Sky Adventure Park”, 4500 square meters of fun zone have been created, with ice skating rink and ski slope (both can be used all year round thanks to synthetic surfaces), jogging trail, bobby car race track, football field, trampoline platform, swings, Climbing equipment and a glass textile sauna for parents with children (next to a wellness area for adults only). The view of the nearby Plan de Corones with its ski area and the distant Ötztal Alps is included.

Is this abundance of offers really necessary for a successful family holiday? Erich Falkensteiner, who describes himself as a “workaholic and family man”, says: “Yes, the trend is clearly towards specialization.”

There are Falkensteiner hotels for adults only, and there are others only for families, such as the Family Resort Lido. You can’t come in here without children. From six months onwards, however, they can also be returned immediately. All age groups from infants to almost teenagers are looked after seven days a week, with a baby kitchen and disco, bottle warmers and rental mountain bikes, with a dollhouse, workbench or learning garden where the children can sow their own seeds and harvest the ingredients for their own salad bowl for dinner.

Sandy beach in the mountains: Holidaymakers should be able to combine bathing and hiking holidays here

A show in itself is the family spa area with a heated outdoor infinity pool and a tube slide with time measurement inside – both in XL dimensions, as known from public fun pools. From the edge of the pool you can see the mountains and the fine sandy beach, which is supposed to give the lake a touch of the Adriatic Sea in summer, just as the Family Resort is aimed at guests who are looking to combine bathing and mountain holidays.

“Even during the planning rounds, there were always children who explained to us clearly what they didn’t like so much and what they absolutely wanted,” says Erich Falkensteiner, the whole thing at four-star superior level. “Two and three stars have no future, five-star hotels are in demand,” says Falkensteiner, “guests live more and more beautifully at home, so you have to offer them something to make their vacation appealing.”

After ten months of renovation, the Lido now has three dozen more rooms and suites than before, 125 in total, all completely new or at least redesigned, decorated in earthy tones, with flexible partitions for different family sizes and some with nests of mattresses hanging from the ceiling and invite children to climb and cuddle. Only in a few corners of remote corridors, into which one quickly gets lost, if one heads for the spa area in a bathrobe and does not necessarily want to slip through the lobby, one notices that the house is not new, but has been boosted enormously, eh indeed, there is still no end in sight to the construction boom in South Tyrolean tourism. In the Puster Valley and elsewhere: cranes everywhere.

Stunk because of wellness hotels: They use a lot of water and energy

How does that fit in with the fact that Erich Falkensteiner emphasizes that sustainability is so important? Again and again there is public stink because of the wellness boxes with their high energy and water consumption, most recently again in Castelrotto, where drought prevails and the population has to be supplied with water by the fire brigade, while the hotel guests splash around happily. “The South Tyrolean hoteliers have not always covered themselves in glory in the past,” says Falkensteiner about the growing competition. But now a rethink is taking place. However, not entirely voluntarily: the state government wants a bed limit of 140 per hotel, EU guidelines provide financial benefits for sustainable investments. The Lido, although a third larger than before, only uses half the energy due to the facade insulation, says Falkensteiner. The hotel is virtually plastic-free. In the rooms there are only solid shampoos and bars of soap – some guests have to get used to them – no packaging at the buffet.

When it comes to eating, it is particularly evident that there is another way than with an oversupply of food. The buffet consists of cooking stations where a lot is freshly prepared and little is thrown away. Most of the products come from local farms that have committed themselves to ethical criteria for animal husbandry and slaughter. The nose-to-tail principle of holistic recycling applies. But of course children are more interested in the fact that they can go to an ice cream truck for dessert and get a gelato.

Falkensteiner Family Resort LidoBahnhofstrasse, 7, 39030 Ehrenburg, Overnight stay in a family room, two adults and two children up to 15 years including full board from 478 euros.