2024-01-04 08:16:36
In the Vaudois Alps, hotels are struggling to sell. Around ten are currently looking for buyers, some for several years. Transforming them into housing might be a solution. But sometimes the municipalities are opposed to it, as in L’Etivaz and Les Diablerets.
The Hôtel du Chamois, located in L’Etivaz, between Les Mosses and Château d’Oex, has been on sale for three years. In the absence of a buyer, the price of the premises and the business has just been lowered once more to 1.3 million francs, compared to nearly 2 million initially.
A more than frustrating situation for Leila Mollien, director of this 30-bed family establishment. “Every time there is a visit, we tell ourselves that it’s the right one, that it will be him. And poof, it’s like a cheese soufflé, it falls,” she lamented Wednesday in on 7:30 p.m. on RTS.
The hotel has been in the hands of the family for four generations. But the youngest doesn’t want to take over the business. The couple remains hopeful despite everything. “It’s hard, we’re patient, it’s going to happen. Because we tell ourselves that everything sells. It takes more or less time,” breathes Jean-François Mollien.
No authorization for transformation into apartments
With staff shortages and rising energy costs, the hotel industry is struggling to attract investors. And in many cases, hotels like that of the Mollien family do not have authorization to be transformed into apartments.
In Diablerets, where four hotels are currently for sale, the trustee explains that he made it a rule for the development of his territory around twenty years ago. “It is very detrimental for a resort to close its hotels to turn them into apartments,” defended Christian Reber, trustee of Ormont-Dessus, at the 7:30 p.m. microphone.
Ski lifts to the rescue
The latest investor to have put his hand into his wallet to save a hotel in Les Diablerets is none other than the company Glacier 3000, which operates one of the resort’s ski areas. It bought a four-star superior hotel located in the heart of the resort in 2022.
“For us, it is important that the destination also lives. If this hotel had been bought and had been closed, it would not have been good at all for Les Diablerets,” underlines Bernhard Tschannen, director of Glacier 3000. he refuses to disclose the purchase price, but he agrees to reveal the amount paid to renovate the property. “Over the next three years, we will invest 22 million francs in renovating the hotel.”
Not all hotels or lodges have the same renovation needs. There are currently around ten on the market within a 30 kilometer radius between L’Etivaz and Les Diablerets. Everyone is waiting for the angel investor who can guarantee them the expected future.
Claude-Olivier Volluz/fgn
1704357207
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