Mountain railroads Crans-Montana resign from tourism association
In the Valais tourist destination of Crans-Montana, tensions are running high once again. The Crans-Montana-Aminona (CMA) mountain railway company is withdrawing from the CMTC (Crans-Montana Tourisme et Congrès) tourism association effective immediately.
The CMA group of companies, to which the mountain railroads belong, is denouncing shortcomings in the association and complaining about problems with the tourism promotion board, as detailed in a press release on Thursday. It is considering founding a new independent tourism organization.
CMTC and the municipality of Crans-Montana reject the accusations. CMTC director Bruno Huggler told the Keystone-SDA news agency on request that there was a good understanding and "very good cooperation" within the committee with the head of the mountain railroads (CMA SA), a member of the CMA Group.
The municipalities, CMTC and the CMA Group have been working for several months on a global strategy for the tourism destination until 2030 - "to the satisfaction of all members, including the CMA, which has validated and signed the jointly defined strategy," said Huggler.
However, there was a lack of open and constructive dialog with the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the CMA Group, Philippe Magistretti, he continued. Magistretti is the right-hand man of Czech investor Radovan Vitek, majority shareholder of CMA.
Relations between the CMA president and the tourism office had deteriorated after the group closed the ski resort's slopes in April 2018 due to a dispute with the municipality over 800,000 francs in perfect snow conditions.
Resignation demand made
Magistretti told the Keystone-SDA news agency that there had been a loss of confidence in the CMTC director, who in his opinion was not working with the necessary commitment and whose resignation he was calling for. He said he was open to further discussions and hoped that they would be successful.
When asked why he had not engaged in a dialog before bringing the problems to the public, the CMA president said that he had communicated and warned enough - to no avail. (SDA)
