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Vienna warns of massive downsides for big tourism companies: Economic Affairs Councilor Peter Hanke (SPÖ) and Tourism Director Norbert Kettner called on Monday to adjust the lockdown revenue replacement and fixed-cost subsidy to big companies. The upper limit of € 800,000 for both support measures would not cover the losses of large hotels and restaurants.
“Large companies in the accommodation and restaurant sectors are at a disadvantage in the current funding regime,” criticized Hanke. He referred to data from Statistics Austria, according to which there were around 48,000 companies in the Austrian hotel and catering industry in 2018, and around 50 of them had an annual turnover of more than 20 million euros. Around 470 is more than five million euros.
“We are talking about some 500 companies that cannot fully compensate for their losses or lost sales due to the current financing limit of 800,000 euros in the case of replacement sales or fixed-cost subsidies, and that may be in an economically worrying situation.”
The importance of these companies for the labor market is great. “If these companies fall into the subsidy network, this could exacerbate the tense situation in the labor market and, in the worst case, even risk key companies leaving the market,” Hanke warned. According to tourism director Norbert Kettner, Vienna’s share cannot be calculated exactly. But especially in urban tourism there are qualified full-time jobs, he pointed out. Kettner expects an initial recovery from Easter 2021, if vaccines are already available by then.
