Davos tourism manager Reto Branschi (64) blames the Jews for the sledding scandal: “Some of the Jewish-Orthodox guests refuse any kind of adaptation.”

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An anti-Semitism scandal is causing unrest in Davos GR and making headlines beyond the country’s borders. An employee sent a note to the Pischa mountain station explaining that sleds or other sports equipment would no longer be rented to members of the Jewish religious community. The reason is “negative experiences in the past”.

The tenant of the mountain station, Ruedi Pfiffner (61), apologized to Blick for his employee’s behavior, but the matter was not over yet. The cantonal police in Grisons are investigating discrimination.

“Two-sided problem”

This situation sheds a bad light on the entire Davos tourist area. Last autumn there was already a scandal: the Davos “Zytig Summit” published a picture of human feces and wrote: “These undoubtedly come from a person of Jewish origin.”

But Reto Branschi (64), manager of the Davos Klosters destination, does not want to know anything about the general problem of anti-Semitism in his area. “Anti-Semitism has no place here,” he tells Blick.

Instead, he talks about “a two-sided problem.” According to Branschi, this primarily concerns guests of the Judeo-Orthodox faith. “Unfortunately, a small portion of Jewish-Orthodox guests refuse to provide any information, mediation or accommodation to our conditions,” says Branschi. This is partly out of weirdness and partly out of disrespect.

According to the Davos tourism director, this leads to a small number of locals, other guests and businesses turning against Jewish guests, including overreactions. “Neither is good because living together only works if everyone respects each other.”

The task force must help

However, Branschi emphasizes that these are isolated cases. But actions like those at the Pischa mountain station always reverberate throughout the destination. “We’re getting a lot of feedback critical of Davos.”

Against this background, the question remains whether it was a mistake to end a dialogue project that started years ago last autumn. Intermediaries should ensure better communication between locals and Jewish guests. «The facilitators of the dialogue project did a good job and put in a lot of effort. But he was disrespected and ignored by a small number of guests. That’s why we ended this project,” explains Branschi.

A working group has been dealing with this problem for about six months. “The first stage was a mediation in which all parties involved were heard,” explains Davos’ leading tourism expert. However, the work was delayed due to the war in the Middle East. We are now about to have talks at the table where we can discuss concrete measures and hopefully decide together.” Time will tell whether this will be enough to prevent further scandals. There does not seem to be any concrete developments in Davos yet.

Davos tourism veteran finds case “shameful”

For Ernst “Aschi” Wyrsch, 62, former landlord of the Steigenberger Grandhotel Belvédère in Davos and now president of the industry association Hotelleriesuisse Graubüsü and a member of the board of directors of Graubeğen Tourism, the incident at the Pischa mountain restaurant was “shameful and cannot just be ignored.” under”.

He regrets the “collateral damage” Davos is currently suffering from this incident; This is even more frustrating since Davos showed itself to be the perfect host for people from all over the world at the WEF just a few weeks ago. He does not accept the tenant’s apology and states that the negative reactions were completely predictable. “The mission of tourism is to make people happy, not to lecture,” Wyrsch explains.

Literally “flashy” collective condemnation of a religious community could tarnish the reputation of Davos, despite its decades-long close connection with Jewish tourists; There is even a Jewish cemetery in the village. Just leaving the situation out is not enough. Wyrsch also calls for a roundtable; but this has a completely different focus from that of the tourism director. That is, a meeting with the hosts where “the basics of behavior towards guests” are discussed. This is at municipal level or, if necessary, cantonal level. Wyrsch concludes: “But this is not a Davos problem, it is a social problem, and other tourist resorts would be well advised to deal with this problem as well.”

Source :Blick