“The instructors ski as if they’re up on a stage / as graceful as a ballet. / They show it their pupils for what seems like an age. / And still they cannot do it.” That is a verse from the “Ötz Valley Ski Waltz” recorded in the 1960s by the “Ötz Valley Ski Instructors Franz, Pius, Toni and Siggi”. The first outsiders to arrive in the Ötz Valley were waitresses from the Austrian provinces of Styria and Carinthia, although looking after tourists remained the preserve of the locals until the 1990s. But with increasing numbers of international arrivals in the inner Ötz Valley, the ski schools losing their dominant role, and Europe growing closer together after the fall of the wall and the en- largement of the EU, other nationals suddenly found themselves welcome as seasonal labour on the ski trails and lifts.
