Originally Posted by
kamel123
Thanks everyone. For the moment, I have booked Burg Vital in Lech. Fully ski-in, ski-out, next to the children's snowgarden, so pretty ideal in terms of location.
However, I am having second thoughts given their cancellation policy: 60 days in advance, and they insist on full payment as long as they are allowed to stay open even if ski lifts are closed. For the moment, Swiss ski areas remain open, while surrounding countries have closed theirs (including Austria). That is in contradiction to prior government statements. It thus looks like a very difficult ski season, with potentially multiple lockdowns, and it is impossible to predict what the situation in February will be like.
So most likely I will cancel and just do day trips, or rebook somewhere with a more flexible policy. I can somewhat understand it from a hotel perspective - they want/need the guaranteed cash flow, but I cannot see myself stay in a ski town with lifts and restaurants closed.
As a data point...
I spoke with the family who own and run a small luxury hotel in Austria (not far from Kitzbuehel) where we have been skiing for the last four or five years, that they do not expect anything close to a normal ski season. They don’t know if they will be able to open or not, whether they will be able to offer the gourmet F&B programme, whether lifts would be open, etc. With so much uncertainty, they have not been able to give certainty to the many seasonal staff they hire. As a consequence, the whole thing bites itself in the tail because nobody can commit to anything, including whether the usual visitors even want to or can come. He told me that it is unlikely they’ll ultimately be open, so thank you for the loyalty, but we’d prefer to see you back under normal circumstances. I won’t be booking anything for February.