Austria ski breaks to rise by £140 after minimum wage law passed
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Family skiing holidays to Austria could soar in price by up to £140 after a new law was passed guaranteeing foreign workers minimum wage.
British tour companies have also threatened to cut back on the number of holidays offered in the European country following the ruling, which will see their operating costs rise.
About 500 UK staff - including chalet workers - in Austria will now have to be paid the minimum wage of £790 a month.
More expensive: British tour operators could raise ski holiday prices by up to £140 in Austria
Historically,boarding and lodgings have always been considered part of workers' overall package.
The penalty for companies could mean a fine of £8,000 (10,000 euros) per employee for not conforming to the Anti Wage And Social Dumping Act 2011.
It comes a year after Switzerland adopted similar measures- which resulted in a rise in bookings this season in Austrian resorts, according to the Times.
British tour operators are now having to consider what is sustainable to offer customers - which could mean rising prices and a reduction on the number of holidays offered.
Workers in Austrian ski resorts will now be paid a full minimum wage, regardless of boarding and lodgings
Many Britons head to Austrian ski resorts for a more exciting working day - and now they are set to be better off too
Supplements for overtime, hazardous work, and festive labour will all come under the microscope to ensure foreign workers' contracts are legitimate with local law.
Fraser Ewart-White, co-founder of Powder White, told MailOnline Travel: 'These highly damaging proposals would lead to a large increase in employment costs, which could see the cost of a family ski holiday to Austria rise by up to £140, jeopardising Austria's position as a value destination.
'We are working with other ski operators to challenge these plans which, if passed, will affect the viability of providing good value chalet holidays in Austria and would hurt the Austrian tourism industry immensely.'
Mr Ewart-White estimates that staff costs could increase by up to 46 per cent over the nine chalets his company runs in the Austrian resort of St Anton.
The introduction of the new laws in Switzerland forced many companies to close down their offerings there.
Ski holiday operators could reduce the amount of trips offered in Austria
Although France remains the most popular ski destination for British skiers, 400,000 tourists from the UK chose Austria as their ski destination last year.
But Austria has now signalled its intent to comply with EU rulings to clamp down on paying foreign workers less than EU nationals in the country they work in.
Speaking to the Times, Andy Perrin, head of Hotelplan UK, which owns Inghams, Skie Total and Ski Esprit said: 'We first heard about this only a fortnight ago and we are trying to make sense of it.
'We take extreme exception to the suggestion that we are wage dumping. On the salary packages that we offer what our staff have in their pockets is considerably more than anyone on the minimum wage in the UK.'
The knock-on effect for British tourists who are planning on, but not yet booked, a 2015 trip to the Austrian slopes is that because companies have already taken reservations, the expenditure outlay to comply with the new laws will inextricably have to be be spread over future bookings.
Of the Swiss legislation, Andy Perrin, of holiday firm Inghams and its sister companies Ski Total and Esprit Ski told The Mail on Sunday last month: 'There are no winners with this legislation.'
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