If you wish to become world-famous, you better think twice. Up to 1997, a quaint little Austrian town at the foot of Salzburg Alps was quietly casting its reflection on the crystal-clear, unruffled surface of the lake that it’s located at. Twenty years ago, a decision was made to place it on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Today, the residents of Hallstatt would rather turn back the time.
Neat houses? Check. Flowers on balconies? Check. A wall of massive forest on which rest human settlements and majestic mountains reminding us of the power of nature? Check. Level of enchantment: 10/10. Instagram will stand in awe.
Hallstatt, southern Austria is flooded with pictures. After a few hundred rather monotonous years, the residents who were occupied mostly with work in a nearby salt mine, animal husbandry, saving tithes for the Church and sending young men to wars, have now found themselves on the front line.
Each year, some 200 houses, about 780-800 people repel attacks coming from all over the world and face millions of tourists.
Million (one followed by six zeros) people visit the Alpine village which makes a short walk to a neighbour for a chit chat, across the small triangular market in the centre, almost impossible for most part of the year. For here they come. Thick crowds of tourists, that spilled out of buses a few hundred metres away, are marching towards the village, armed with selfie-sticks, cameras, sun hats, umbrellas, jackets and foiled sandwiches.
The world attacks Hallstatt from Monday to Sunday. This decade saw the village reaching a critical point. Crowds of tourists in such European cities like Rome, London, Paris, Venice or Barcelona is one thing. Masses of strangers from every corner of the Earth flowing around a small group of residents of this Alpine province, far away from the main trails of touristic consumerism of the 21st century, is something completely different.
The fate of the village has changed along with one generation’s growing up.
Mobile Disney kingdom
At first, the reason for which the world took interest in the small Hallstatt was one of the oldest salt mines known to humanity, that had been discovered in the area. In the 19th century, traces of civilization dated back 2,500 years were found there. A very-well preserved remains of a miner, older than Christianity, have been recorded.
However, visiting Hallstatt today is only an aftermath of enrolling it (due to the above-mentioned reason) on UNESCO Heritage List. All those planes, buses and cars aren’t filled with crowds of anthropology, ethnography and history of culture loving experts on the Iron Age. Today, what’s interesting lies on the surface, rather than below.
Tourists from all continents are astounded by the picturesque scenery of Hallstatt. The town resembles a mini-kingdom from a Disney’s tale. A clean, well-ordered, colourful fabric of houses that has been taken care of by the residents throughout the centuries is a phenomenon.
The "discovery" of Hallstatt, as well as a special place it has found itself in its history, resulted due to a number of factors. Apart from its name being put on the UNESCO list, we may distinguish three others.
Certainly, one of them would be the "curse" of the unique landscape the town is embedded in and, at the same time, is a part of. Along with the development of social media and mobile technology, pictures of Hallstatt appeared in travel applications that, nowadays, are within the reach of nearly everyone. The pictures flooded Facebook, Twitter and, most of all, Instagram. On this last one alone, within 24 hours between Wednesday and Thursday (5-6 December) 400 new photos were uploaded under the hashtag #hallstatt. Some of those photos have between 15 and 20 thousand "likes" and there are nearly half a million of them there.
The reason? People simply want to visit such places. Such pictures will always tempt travelers to come. People will always want to, and often "have to" share such pictures with others.
The curse of television
Most tourists visiting Hallstatt come from Asia. There’s a number of reasons for that too.
The legendary status of a South Korean, 20-episode series entitles "Spring Waltz". Among other locations, it has been shot also in Vienna and Hallstatt. It was made in 2006. The director is said to have masterfully used the town’s scenery and juxtaposed it with the story of an unfulfilled love between the main characters. Even today, this oriental style tearjerker is spinning traffic between Seoul and the Alps. The author of this here text have not seen the "Spring Waltz" himself, but assumes nevertheless that the series may have exerted an impact on the whole South Korean nation.
After all, "Game of Thrones" has made the Croatian Dubrovnik (King’s Landing) to fear tourists. Their raids aren’t as fun as they used to be anymore.
Made in China
The Chinese also visit the Alpine town en masse. Also in this Asian country, Hallstatt has become a phenomenon, in this case however, because of a fine copy of the town. Residents of the Middle Kingdom have built themselves their own Hallstatt.
One of the most celebrated contemporary fashion designers, Jean-Paul Gaultier once told a story in an interview, about his trip to China, in early 2000s. He went to a fair in Beijing. He was surprised to find watches there, signed with his name. Obviously, those were knock-offs sold for 25 dollars a piece. Despite that, Gaultier found himself amazed by this. Why? Even for a slightest moment, he wasn’t able to tell the difference between a copy and the original.
The problem of copied, imitated and stolen technologies, as well as infringing copyrights by the Chinese have been a recurring subject of talks about the world trade. It has become one of the key issues in relations between China and the West. The Chinese have such massive human, territorial and technological powers at their disposal that the potential of their ever-growing economy is unprecedented. Therefore, copying the whole Hallstatt hasn’t been a big difficulty. For the town’s residents, however, it came down as a shock.
At the beginning of the 21st century, Austria has found its permanent place in the Chinese travel agencies’ folders. The Alps with its all-season, out-of-this-world landscapes started to attract millions from the ever-growing and ever-richer middle class, who had already seen the cities of France, Italy and Spain. According to "China Daily", in 2005 Hallstatt was visited by a mere 50 Chinese tourists. Later on, however, they started to come in greater numbers and the 2012 marked a real boom.
The town has become famous thanks to its copy. However, the author of that project, one of the most powerful investors in China, has pushed it to fruition in a very controversial style.
In 2011, one of the hotels owned by a long-standing resident of Hallstatt, Monika Wenger was visited by a representative of Minmetals Corp., the largest Chinese consortium dealing with iron and property trade. It remains unclear whether he was there before or saw the town in pictures, but he certainly arrived well-prepared. He was accompanied by a well-organised group of "sightseers" equipped with cameras, measuring tools and acting suspiciously.
They were literally "measuring" Hallstatt and documenting everything. Obviously, such activities couldn’t have gone unnoticed. The only problem was that the whole operation was carried out without consulting any local authorities or residents.
Maybe the locals were too shy to ask the "tourists" about their activities. Maybe they asked, but got no answer. Monika Wenger claims that no explanation was provided.
A year later, Hallstatt received an invitation. A Chinese company sent a plane for Austrian public officers and a group of residents who were meant to fly to Guangdong Province in south-east China. In a place some 100 kilometers from Hongkong, the second Hallstatt came into being - the message read.
The Austrians thought they were going to see a project inspired by their won heritage. What they didn’t expect to see was Hallstatt Made in China.
Within 12 months, in a subtropical climate of the Middle Kingdom, a staggeringly similar copy of the Alpine town was built. The construction consumed 940 million dollars. It appears it was worth it. The whole idea that was meant to be a huge investment and residential project attracted many tourists, who after seeing the copy, wanted to see the original.
The only thing missing near Hongkong were the Alps. Apparently, humans are still unable to create 4,000-meter high mountains.
And so the Chinese set off to Austria.
Hallstatt says "enough"
Data from 2018, printed by a local daily "Kurier", suggest that from January to July, Austria was visited by over 540,000 tourists from China alone. That’s an 8-percent increase year-on-year. The trend has been stable for years and there are no indications of change. Tourists from the most-populated country are visiting Vienna, Innsbruck and Salzburg with its environs. Those "environs" mean Hallstatt, where tourists spend usually a few hours replicating the sights on the films of their cameras.
Some say today, that Hallstatt is as popular as the famous Bavarian castle of Neuschwanstein.
We might assume that in the beginning the residents of Hallstatt were happy. - It’s worth to let others enjoy the beauty of our town - they may have been saying during breakfasts, felling curious and proud. For them, seeing people from the other side of the globe must have been an attraction too. Opening to the world, or rather world’s decision to come to Hallstatt, has brought changes.
On the lake, that took its name from the town, tour boats appeared. Bakers found out they may sell more bagels and apple pies, restaurant owners reorganised their kitchens and offered lunches to tourists, hotels invested in better beds and newsstand keepers equipped themselves with, now produced on a massive scale, postcards, fridge-magnets, mugs, glasses, pens glittering with all the rainbow’s colors, notepads, glass balls with snow-imitating glitter, encapsulating the Alpine world underneath a miniature glass dome.
However, once forced to wait in a long queue to buy anything in their hometown, things like bread, bowl of soup or phone top up, at some point people will say "enough".
Local residents struggle to save small fragments of their space from being downtrodden. In November, many articles appeared in Austrian and German media ("Kurier", "Der Spiegel", RTL), about residents who politely, but decisively expressed their discontent with the gift shops that sprang up like mushrooms after the rain in recent years.
It’s also about the question of tidiness. Not so long ago, Hallstatt used to be clean, neat and quiet. Today, bins are overflowing with trash and drones are flying about over people’s heads. Furthermore, tourists are talking all the time.
Authorities of the municipality, that centres around the town, are trying to implement a contingency plan. The idea is to limit the tourists’ access to Hallstatt by setting up a strict number of visitors per day. Also on the table is limiting the parking time for buses. Such solution was introduced in the nearby Salzburg. Rumour has is that there was also an idea to charge additional fee for visiting the town, but it didn’t work out.
Nevertheless, the need of returning to normality is still strong. The financial aspect isn’t the top priority. The residents of Hallstatt do not wish for "more". They would rather have "a bit less".
They are not kicking anybody out but they could use some more peaceful life.
It appears that Poles are not particularly aware of Hallstatt. We have sent enquiries to a few major travel agencies in Poland, regarding tours to this little town.
We have received replies from Rainbow Tours and Itaka. In 2018, the former sent some 300 people to Hallstatt, whereas the latter - 150.
Luckily, it’s not much.
Should ever you happen to visit the town, kindly keep quiet.
Autor: Adam Sobolewski, gf / Źródło: TVN24 News in English