Austrian ski chalet holidays threatened by new wage rules

Chalet ski holidays in Austria could be hit by new wage laws as soon as New Year’s Day, threatening the operation of British companies in the country.

New regulation is set to be confirmed this Thursday which would require British companies to pay the Austrian minimum wage for hotel staff, on top of the traditional package that typically includes accommodation, flights, ski pass and other amenities as payment.

The Austrian minimum wage is EUR1,000 and is divided into 14 instead of 12 payments, resulting in British companies paying out seven months of pay instead of six.

Whatsmore with its expected introduction time the wage rules will fall midway through the ski season.

Pwder White is one of the company’s raising concern with the new regulation.

“These highly damaging proposals would lead to a large increase in employment costs, which will affect the viability of providing good value chalet holidays in Austria. We are working with other ski operators to challenge these plans which, if passed, would hurt the Austrian tourism industry immensely,” said Fraser Ewart-White, founder of Powder White.

He has asked the Austrian government to reconsider the move or risk operators pulling out of operations in the country.

“We would ask the Austrian government to think very hard about these law changes, which if implemented, would be bad news for the country and also not enable operators to pull out this season if they wanted to due to holidays already sold,” he added.

sourced:traveldailymedia.com