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Coronavirus: Swiss Alps yearn for the sound of tourists
Jun 5, 2020
As cases of Covid-19 start to fall across Europe, lockdowns are being relaxed and more travel is being permitted. That's a relief for alpine tourist resorts, which were forced to close down right in the middle of the ski season.
This weekend Switzerland's mountain railways and cable cars can start running again. In Grindelwald, home of the Eiger and the world famous Jungfrau "top of Europe" railway - altitude 3,454m (11.332ft) - this is very good news.
The Konzett family have been running the Kreuz and Post hotel in Grindelwald for four generations. When the Swiss government declared a state of emergency in March, ordering the closure of schools, restaurants, bars and all the ski slopes, their business melted away.
Image caption Summer in the Alps has not been this quiet since wartime
"It was a big shock," says hotel manager Benjamin Konzett. "The bookings we had… we lost them within one day, basically."
"We've had this hotel since 1886, and to find a similar situation to now, we would have to go back to the Second World War, when everything was closed."
How railways are sending an important signal
Grindelwald's director of tourism, Bruno Hauswirth, believes the re-opening of the mountain railways is the key to bringing tourists back. After all, more than a million people took the train up to the Jungfrau last year alone.
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