Cutting-edge: Alpine ski homes in Austria's lesser-known resorts where tradition meets innovation

High-quality chalets and flats are for sale off-plan from £183k in family-friendly villages with superb skiing facilities.
Super-long ski season: Obergurgl, where Alpine Marketing has flats for sale from £344,000. The resort, high altitude at 1,950 metres, is a British favourite with a village vibe www.alpinemarketing.com
Cathy Hawker19 January 2018

Austria’s alpine resorts combine years of tradition with cutting-edge innovation. There are family-run hotels in charming wooden chalets complete with waitresses in dirndls but also a fabulously modern skiing infrastructure and a sincere desire to give visitors a five-star experience.

“Austria invests more than any other Alpine country in its ski resorts,” says Jessica Delaney of Alpine Marketing.

“They were the first to introduce heated seats on ski lifts and every year spend significant amounts on lift infrastructure and snow-making machinery. Austria is catching up with France for winter tourism numbers, attracting significant numbers of younger skiers, too.”

Top-dollar locations include Lech and Kitzbühel where prices and prestige rival the finest in France and Switzerland — but there are also more affordable, little-known, family-friendly resorts.

THE BIG-NAME RESORT: OBERGURGL

​Obergurgl at the end of the Ötztal valley, 90 minutes from Innsbruck airport and an hour from Italy, is high altitude and snow sure, with a super-long ski season.

It’s a British favourite with a village vibe and a large, high-quality ski area.

It shares a ski pass with fashionable Sölden, a resort with two glaciers, five runs featuring 1,000-metre vertical drops and home to the dramatic glass Ice Q restaurant seen in the James Bond film SPECTRE.

“Obergurgl is ideal for families and intermediate group skiing, as all steep black runs have an easier blue run option beside them,” says Delaney.

“Most properties are ski in and out and link to the lifts and ski schools in the village centre.”

Alpine Marketing has fully furnished flats from £344,000 net for one to three bedrooms. Fifteen are ready in the centre at Obergurgl Lodge, with 20 coming this year at Chalet Edel and Majestic Apartments at the far end of the village.

Under local Tyrol law they must be available to rent and will be fully serviced and managed by the Edelweiss Hotel, a long-established family-run hotel and spa. Owners have five weeks annual use and receive 70 per cent of rental income with no service charges to pay.

THE NEW-NAME RESORT: NEUKIRCHEN

New rental and resale laws in SalzburgerLand restrict the number of second homes for sale. Most resorts here have good year-round appeal with a strong winter and summer season.

Neukirchen is a low-key, historic village 95 minutes from Salzburg airport with access to over 380 kilometres of skiing.

Kirsche Apartments are one- to three-bedroom off-plan homes beside the ski lifts, from £183,000. On completion by Christmas 2019 there will be an on-site spa, pool and restaurant.

From £562,000: with national park views, Forest Village Chalets at Neukirchen through Alpine Marketing 

Forest Village Chalets, also for sale through Alpine Marketing, is a small hamlet of 63 three- to five-bedroom chalets with wonderful views of the national park.

Fully furnished chalets start from £562,000 net. These are beautiful properties with double-height ceilings, built on a sloping 10-acre site and managed from a central reception.

“Chalets of this quality that are easy to ski back to and have good views and full services, equidistant from airports at Salzburg and Innsbruck, are incredibly rare,” says Delaney.

‘BRITS RETURN TO US YEAR AFTER YEAR’

Lukas Scheiber is the fifth generation of his family to own Hotel Edelweiss in Obergurgl, a welcoming 132-room hotel in the village centre that is a firm British favourite.

“Some British families have been coming for 60 years,” says Lukas, who runs the hotel with his wife, Tanja.

“They like the safety of a small village and the big ski area with excellent snow quality and the guarantee of a long season.”

Fifth generation owners of Hotel Edelweiss: Lukas and Tanja Scheiber

Obergurgl’s year-round population of 400 welcomes 80,000 skiers each winter. To meet this demand the Scheiber family has developed flats for sale in the village.

“Our lift infrastructure can transport 45,000 skiers per hour so there are never severe queues and we have 100 per cent snow cannon coverage,” adds Lukas.

“Obergurgl has excellent options for non-skiers, too, including tobogganing and hiking, and it’s particularly easy to meet up with skiers for lunch in mountain restaurants.”

Rates at Hotel Edelweiss start from £128 a night on a half-board basis.

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