Golfpark boss: “Need income from the hotel project to survive”

ULRICHSBERG. Because he has been attacked in online comments for weeks, among other things, and his employees are also “being teased in the open street”, Golfpark Managing Director Stefan Waltl has his say in a detailed video message on the planned hotel project in Seitelschlag.

As reported, the Schröcks Nadel Group is planning an apart-hotel project together with the Schlägl Abbey, similar to the one in Hinterstoder. This is to be built in the parking lot area of ​​the golf club.

There are concerns on the part of many citizens regarding water supply, traffic or from a nature conservation point of view (report on this page). However, the stories shoot up quite a bit: “I’ve also heard that in the final phase it will be a refugee home or even a prison or that second homes will be prepared here,” says Waltl and makes it clear why the continued existence of the golf park is closely linked to the hotel project is linked: “If you had asked me a year ago, I would have been positive about the hotel, but it wouldn’t have mattered much if it hadn’t come. But times have changed,” he says and explains: “We are experiencing massive price increases. The fuel costs for course maintenance alone have almost doubled. Normally we need about 20,000 to 25,000 euros per year for the diesel, this year we have already paid 42,000 euros. I’m not even talking about the personnel costs or the difficulty of finding staff at all.” In addition, after the devastating fire in the clubhouse with the restaurant in May this year, the company’s main source of income dried up.

Hotel is a great opportunity

“We really want to continue here because we have created a destination for the whole family with the Bohemian Forest Park,” says the managing director. Operation on the golf course is still secured for 2023, everything else is uncertain. “We’re trying to keep this thing alive every day, but we don’t want to do it at any cost. I don’t want to keep the company alive artificially.” That is why you need the income from the basic sale and from the catering of the hotel guests. “We need foreign golfers. It’s that simple,” says Waltl.

Infrastructure thanks to tourism

As an example, Stefan Waltl mentions his home town of Zell am See. “The good infrastructure there is largely due to tourism. It’s no different in Ulrichsberg.” One should think about whether all the leisure facilities would pay off for the almost 3,000 inhabitants.

Golf operation wobbles from 2024

Without the sale of the property and without a hotel operation, golf operations will probably no longer be possible from 2024. “As in the past few days on social media, I will be accused of greed. But that has nothing to do with that. That’s a business certainty,” says the Golfpark manager and would like an “open but factual discussion.”

Critics have doubts

Resident Barbara Binder, on the other hand, does not like the project at all: “For me as a citizen, it is difficult for me to understand that apartments with around 330 beds are to be built in the immediate vicinity in a short time and that nobody cares,” she writes. “Where are the Greens when 12,000 m2 of ground is being concreted over? Where are the hunters who are already stressed when a local walks through the forest with his dog?” she asks in an emotional letter to the editor. “Apartments are planned, which are then used in the development plan,” criticizes the resident: “There is no infrastructure, no suitable access roads, neither from Julbach nor from Seitelschlag, and above all the operators have no heating, no water and none Parking spaces for guests and golfers, which also have to be concreted over.”

She also makes the community of Ulrichsberg responsible: “Suddenly the community has money for the water supply and the expansion of the roads, although the fire brigade has been waiting for a new fire station for years and the elementary and middle schools are totally desolate.”

Barbara Binder is also unconvinced by the operator concept: “People who go on a golf holiday certainly don’t book a self-catering apartment, the Hochficht ski area has been overloaded for years and there is no money left for the mountain rescue service, but the main thing is that the income is right.” fears that the apartments could be sold as condominiums in the foreseeable future. In addition, the domestic hotel industry would also suffer from additional offers in an already tense time.