At today's Annual General Meeting of Kleinwalsertaler Bergbahn AG, the Management Board reflected on a challenging 2019/2020 fiscal year and provided an outlook for the current one. "Even though the operating environment was and remains difficult due to the coronavirus pandemic, we can demonstrate what entrepreneurial spirit, teamwork, and cooperative collaboration mean to us," said Management Board member Andreas Gapp. Despite the global pandemic and the early end of the winter season, sales revenue remained consistently high at more than €8.0 million in the past fiscal year. Looking at the year as a whole, the cable cars are satisfied with the demand of 360,000 guests achieved, despite the coronavirus-related operational disruptions.
Seizing the opportunities of the crisis
"A shutdown of the cable cars does not mean a standstill for the company. Quite the opposite: We continued to work with great motivation, pushed ahead with projects, and completed them ahead of schedule," said fellow Board member Johannes Krieg. With the early start of the complete renovation of the Nebelhornbahn cable car in May 2020, which was completed in spring 2021, the expansion of the shared services of Kleinwalsertaler Bergbahn AG within the OBERSTDORF · KLEINWALSERTAL BERGBAHNEN cable car network, and the technical innovations on the Fellhorn summit cable car, the local cable cars can look back on a dynamic business year. New pilot projects were also launched: "During preliminary ecological work for the design of an autonomous snowmaking system on the Fellhorn, the presence of the protected species of wood birch mouse was discovered in the area around the Kanzelwandhaus," explains Johannes Krieg. Together with experts from the LFU, LRA, and the Swabian government, they are now investigating the extent to which the animal has settled in the Fellhorn area and whether there are options for relocating it in a way that is compatible with species protection. The "intelligent parking guidance system" project was also launched in the past fiscal year. It went live in summer 2021. "Guests can access the current parking situation in Oberstdorf-Kleinwalsertal via our website even before they arrive – with the latest status and live occupancy figures. This allows us to direct them to available parking spaces and minimize the additional burden from motorists."
Careful, safe, gentle – also in the current fiscal year
"To ensure we could continue to guarantee our guests safe mountain experiences in summer 2020, we developed a well-thought-out hygiene concept for safe interaction on the mountain – to protect both guests and our employees," says Johannes Krieg. This concept was firmly established in collaboration with the two tourism associations in the two-country region. "The fact that we were unable to start the winter season as a mountain railway association, despite our proven summer concept, which was further developed for the 2020/2021 winter, was a bitter blow for us. In order to preserve the special status granted to Kleinwalsertal, we supported the decisions of the Bavarian state government," says Andreas Gapp, concluding: "We can already say today that the 2020/21 financial year will be one of the most difficult in our company's history. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that even a hopefully very good summer will in no way be able to offset the seven-figure loss of the past winter."
