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Mayor Michael Ludwig wants to boost gastronomy with the expensive campaign of 40 million.
“Schani leads the garden,” the mayor of Vienna may say once a year with great media interest along with the president of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce. This has been felt for centuries, in fact for decades. Current protagonists Michael Ludwig and Walter Ruck also have a routine.
“Now spring begins, now we can finally sit outside again,” resonates in normal years in this traditional photoshoot when the two men sit in the sidewalk garden and pour themselves coffee. But of course this year is different. Not only that the sidewalk gardens will open much later (this usually happens in early April). Nor is it as usual. The media interest is enormous, countless photographers, cameramen and editors, mostly because of the hustle and bustle of a mask, gathered on Wednesday in front of the Augustinerkeller (next to Albertina) in the center of Vienna.
Only the men in suits, besides Ludwig and Ruck, are Councilor Peter Hanke and Hans Arsenovic, Vice President of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, they don’t wear masks, after all, it’s a photo. There is no cafe for them either, not even a sidewalk garden, which can only be opened and entered on Friday. Instead, they have to settle for a cardboard sign and symbolically stop everything.
For this, Mayor Ludwig has a small gift for the Viennese and, above all, Viennese gastronomy in his luggage, or rather to announce it, with which he wants to promote battered gastronomy.
25 euros for individual households
Every Viennese household must obtain a voucher for Viennese gastronomy. One-person households worth 25 euros, multi-person households worth 50 euros. “We want to give gastronomy a boost,” says Ludwig. He already knew that this alone would not save gastronomy, but it should be an incentive to support Viennese innkeepers and coffee shop businesses.
950,000 households in Vienna will receive a coupon. Ludwig puts the costs at 40 million euros. “We can afford that because we did a good job as a city,” he says. Walter Ruck thanks Councilor Hanke, also present, for “opening the bag and paying for the campaign with the city budget.”
Coupons must be valid from mid-June to mid-September, and must be sent well in advance. You bet on the Viennese, who must also compensate for the loss of tourists. “Last year we had 17 million overnight stays, which we will greatly miss this year,” says Ruck.
This can also be felt these days in the city. “I pass through this place more frequently, but I’ve never seen it as empty as it is now,” says Ludwig, who also has some figures on Viennese gastronomy. There are 6,000 catering establishments with 60,000 employees in Vienna, generating € 1.4 trillion a year. Quickly added, with coffee machines there are almost 9,000 Viennese businesses.
It remains to be seen how many of them will survive the two-month close. But you fight for every company, says Ludwig. He himself was in Linz on Friday at a conference of state governors. “But I will keep it as short as possible so that I can visit as many Viennese restaurants as possible,” he tells the “press.” The Swiss house is certainly one of them, but also smaller cafes and restaurants.
Only partially used taxi vouchers
Compared to the taxi coupons the city issued to the Viennese population over 65 in March, the coupon campaign in the restaurant sector is much larger. At that time, 300,000 older Vienna taxi vouchers were distributed to get things done, as emphasized after the criticism (that the city of Vienna motivates older people to go on excursions). So far, 14,000 trips have been completed with vouchers of 50 euros. “We budget ten million euros for the taxi campaign,” says Ludwig. However, the value depends on how many of those coupons that are valid through the fall are redeemed.
The situation is similar with gastronomy coupons, which are budgeted at 40 million euros, explains Ludwig, who then, along with Ruck, has to quickly hold a chair in the camera, after all, it is a symbolic appointment. Incidentally, for the first time in 1750 it was called “Schani, Get the Garden Out” in the ditch. Back then without a photographer, and without a mask.
