Self catering puzzle.

Being new to the Ski scene i maybe missing something but....... Do Austrians not do self catering??

We always prefer self catering as we like to sample different eating experiences and locations yet nearly all the Austrian package holidays are Half board.

Whats the score?

Ta.

It depends where you are looking, doesn't it?
Some tour ops only do half board or B&B in Austria, that tends to be the norm whereas France has traditionally had shoe box sized self catering apartments in places like VT, Flaine, Avoriaz, etc.
Personally, I like Austrian catering, and some of the packages are well priced, and accommodation is nearly always of a higher standard per se than France.

Where in particular are you looking, and which tour ops are you considering?

Thanks Tony,

I wasn't particularly looking at any resort although i am drawn to Mayrhofen.
We like self catering so we can dine out at different restaurants giving a more rounded holiday. We also do not like being tied to timetables and sometimes we simply like to cook our own food.

I did see plenty of B&B options but they do not seem to offer even the most basic cooking facilities so that would not be much better than HB.

The TO'S i have been looking at are the big names:

First choice
Crystal
Neilsen
Inghams
etc............

If you have a better place to look i would be most grateful.

Jon

Snapzzz wrote:Being new to the Ski scene i maybe missing something but....... Do Austrians not do self catering??

The thing to remember is that Brits on package ski holidays are still the minority so the accommodation on offer reflects what the major markets want. In France the customers tend to be French not surprisingly and they're quite happy with small apartments where they'll actually self-cater. In Austria it's basically Germans and they prefer B&B or hotels, that's partly due to the huge numbers of people who'll ski at the weekend so self-catering doesn't work out. Partly this about extracting money from the Germans who'd load the car up with food, beer and supplies form home and not spend a cent in the village left to their own devices. There is a fair amount of self catering in Austria but it's spread around in units of one or two and it doesn't work for the UK TO's who are on wafer thin margins, that works for the TO's in France where they can bus hundreds of people into the same handful of locations and to be fair it works for the clients as well, they swap around but are basically the same people going to a tiny number of places which helps TO's get the costs down.

Snapzzz, there are self catering apartments in Mayrhofen available through J2ski. Quite a few other destinations in Austria too. Look at the top blue banner on this page under "Stay". It may also be worth you looking at Interhome, who have apartments on offer all over Europe.

For Mayrhofen, look at the official website: www.mayrhofen.at

Austria has loads of B&B, prices can be reasonable at smaller ones, who often offer buffet breakfast but do not offer dinner. I am guessing they are much dearer in smart resorts unless you are prepared to go a few km outside the centre.

Probably qutie a few do not even have websites. They call them pensions, so to find them, google 'Pension' (plural 'Pensionen') or contact the tourist office. Pub-type accommodation would be called 'Gasthaus' or maybe 'Wirthaus', where dinner (not necessarily included) tends to be be traditional local home cooking. Every little town seems to have a government-run tourist co-ordinator, sometimes called 'Fremdenverkehr,' supervising and promoting local tourism businesses.

I have no experience of self-catering in Austria. You find blocks of comfortable student-like rooms in German towns, with a couple of electric rings and maybe a microwave and some pans and plates. I found a nice place in Berlin which, oddly, included both breakfast and self-catering facilites. They have a website (fairly invisible to Google) but I got the contact by walking in to a government tourist office, who charged Euro2 for the booking.