Skiing in Austria: foreign instructors as a security threat

In anticipation of the ski season in Austria, here is gaining popularity the campaign against foreign ski instructors. Austrian publication Kronen Zeitung published an article that questioned the competence of foreigners in learning the basics skiing skills on the slopes of the Austrian Alps. The article quoted an anonymous critic who as an everyday phenomenon gives the example of the trainers who can’t even learn the map of ski tracks.

One of the main claims set forth in the Kronen Zeitung were poor training program offered by foreign ski instructors. The Austrian instructors provide tourists with full training including theoretical tests and practices, while foreign instructors offer mostly one or two-day courses.

According to Kronen Zeitung in winter season at ski resorts in Austria work in total 6,000 ski instructors. About one third of them are foreigners, who each year comes from abroad. The largest number of foreign instructors comes from Germany and the Netherlands - countries that are key suppliers of tourists for the Austrian slopes. At the same time the main threat, according to Kronen Zeitung, are the trainers from the countries of Eastern Europe. The publication notes that under the guise of specialists on alpine skiing in Austria come criminal elements. To solve the problem is proposed the cardinal method: "to close the border" in order to allow the Austrian instructors save jobs.

To date, in Austria in the field of tourist services are employed from 6000 to 7500 people, most of them are citizens of the EU. While on temporary contracts in Austria are employed far more people from bordering countries, mainly from Germany, as reported by austrianindependent.com.

As for Russia, then for the first half of 2010, the number of tourists who choose to holiday in Austria increased by 35% compared to last year. During the winter season 2009/2010 the number of overnight stays in Austrian hotels of Russians has increased by 11,9%. The most popular ski region in Austria among Russian tourists is Tyrol.