Coming to work, staying to live

Where space is limited and housing a precious good, only the few are able to settle permanently. The resorts continue to grow with the construction of new hotels, condos, pensions, lifts and cable cars, and other recreational amenities. Council housing, on the other hand, is not so important – and is in any case limited to persons of Austrian or EU nationality in the Tyrol. And with private properties in the inner Ötz Valley often costing as much as 4,000 euros per square metre and more, very few seasonal workers ever manage to join the ranks of the home owners, or obtain year-round employment, or even have a family and the prospect of bringing up their children here. For them – in the municipality with the highest number of bednights in the Tyrol – it is surprisingly difficult to find somewhere to sleep.