Outcry after hotel bans kids

2005-10-13 15:26

Vienna - There was a storm of protest on Thursday over a ban on children by a prominent hotelier trying to attract wealthy guests seeking peace and quiet.

Roland Ballner of the Hotel Cortisen, at St Wolfgang near Gmunden on one of Austria's best-known lakes, Wolfgangsee, said that from May next year, his hotel would be "a child-free zone" with children under 12 not permitted on the premises.

"My guests have a right to quiet and relaxation without the noise of children," said the 38-year-old hotelier. He added that in many cases it was not the children who caused problems but parents who turned a blind eye to bad behaviour.

Ballner said he had invested €2.5m in his hotel. He could not tolerate "children drawing with felt-tipped pens on white leather couches", he was quoted as saying by the Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper.

He said he was convinced there would be positive reactions, and that other hoteliers might even copy his idea. The ban would be rigorous, he warned. Anyone arriving with children after May 2006 would not be given a room. But he had "no problem" with dogs, he added.

First reactions were uniformly negative. Deputy governor of Upper Austria province, Franz Hiesl, said it was "outrageous" - even more so as Ballner was advertising the concept.

President of the Austrian Association of Hoteliers, Sepp Schellhorn, was equally critical. "Basically I have a social- political problem with this business. We're getting more and more intolerant and more and more egotistical."

"After all, no human being arrives in the world grown-up," Schellhorn pointed out in the mass-circulation Kronen Zeitung. - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA