Tourism in the Enns Valley

“Even Tyroleans are now envious of us”

Schladming's mayor Hermann Trinker: "Highly professional marketing machinery."(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Barbara Winkler)

From barren mountain farms to successful tourism businesses: No other municipality in Styria is more popular with guests today than Schladming, and it is the clear leader when it comes to overnight stays. However, the Ennstal success story also has its downsides.

Scant notes in Alpine Club books show that the first "out-of-towners" undertook hikes in the Schladminger Tauern as early as the 1910s. It was mainly farmers who opened their then still sparse farms to guests a little later: "Our own people moved into tiny rooms in summer so that the living quarters were free for visitors," says Helmut Schrempf about the beginnings of tourism in his homeland. That was in the 1950s.