Skiing in Ski amadé - Austria's greatest ski paradise
Skiing in Ski amadé - Austria's greatest ski paradise
Michael Hoffmann

You live and learn

It’s a miracle why you can hardly find a local skiers in the care of ski instructors. The reason why is not even clear to the big boss of 155 Salzburg ski schools, the entrepreneur Gerhard Sint from St. Johann: 

“Is it because they are afraid and embarrassed by being spotted with a Ski Instructor by other local?

Maybe they think to themselves – somehow I'll get down anyway – or maybe they just don’t want to treat themselves with a ski instructor's lesson – although everyone can ski way more relaxed with technical ski tips. We don't know.” He laughes. “But still, they have a very high oppinion about our ski schools because they communicate to their friends and possibly also to their guests how great and easy skiing can be with the appropriate technology."

Gerhard Sint is the head of the ski and snowboard instructor association for 14 years now

This institution, based in Bruck an der Glocknerstrasse, currently looks after 155 schools and thus up to 6000 employees. For more than three decades, Sint and his partner and friend Sigi Kreidenhuber have run the red-white-red ski school. He is happy that his son Lukas is following in his footsteps – both in the ski school and in his "summer job" as a surveyor with a focus on building lifts.

Sint, incidentally also an enthusiastic Harley rider, is pleased that the interest in ski instructor training has not diminished in times of the Corona: “1000 ski instructors take part in advanced training every year, 1000 start training. When it comes to their seasonal occupation, they are flexible and largely show solidarity with their employers. That became evident in the difficult winter of 2020/21 – and it won't be any different at the moment. Ski school companies usually have a second mainstay and the ski instructors are often students or a part-time job. The ski schools got through the phase thanks to state subsidies. "

Michael Hoffmann

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