Cost of artificial snow for Austrian ski resorts estimated at 1.5 bln USD since 2000

Austrian ski resorts are increasingly being forced to implement snow cannons to make up for lack of natural snow, spending hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years.

Most recent estimates have the number of snow cannons in operation in Austria at around 20,000, with Director of the Austrian Hotel and Tourism Bank Michael Kleeman estimating the total amount spent on artificial snow creation since the year 2000 at 1.5 billion U.S. dollars.

In an interview with radio program Oe1 Morgenjournal, Michael Manhart, operator of the biggest lift and ski lift company in the Lech am Arlberg region in the state of Vorarlberg, said ski lift operators in the region are spending about 7 million dollars a year on artificial snow, equal to about 20 percent of their turnover.

Additionally about 23 million dollars has been invested in modernising the artificial snow technology in Lech, he said.

Robert Steiger from the Management Center Innsbruck (MCI) however said the cost often falls onto taxpayers, as increasing numbers of ski resorts are going into bankruptcy due to climate change, the cost for propping them up ultimately falling on either local towns or even the state.

He added that some studies show that further investment in smaller or lower-lying ski resorts is not recommended, while better plans are required on how to make ski regions more efficient overall. Endit