Paganella at 50: a lift company’s next goal is year-round tourism

Paganella 2001 marked its half-century with €16.3 million in 2025 revenue and more than €2.7 million in profit. But as winter and summer activity both grow, the company’s milestone also spotlights the challenge of sustaining an Alpine destination through a changing climate and a longer tourism calendar.

At first glance, the figures tell a straightforward success story. Paganella 2001 reported revenue of more than €16.3 million and net profit above €2.7 million for 2025, alongside a workforce of 60 employees. The company celebrated its 50th anniversary in Andalo on October 10, 2026, with local and provincial officials.

The deeper story is how much the business has changed since its founding in 1976. Seven partners, led by Dario Toscana, established the company to manage municipal lifts. Its later merger with Paganella spa of Fai della Paganella in 1989 helped consolidate the area’s infrastructure. Today, Paganella 2001 operates alongside Funivie Valle Bianca, serving a destination that draws visitors for both snow sports and summer outdoor activities.

That evolution began well before the company’s incorporation. In 1959, Andalo’s municipal council approved a lift linking the village with Cima Paganella, a major investment for a community then grounded in agriculture, forestry and craft work. The first lift opened in 1962. Tourism reshaped the plateau’s economy over the decades that followed, and the anniversary celebration cast Paganella 2001 as one of the institutions that helped drive that transformation.

The latest results suggest that the destination is no longer relying on winter alone. In the 2025–26 winter season, the Paganella ski area recorded a 6.89% increase in lift passages and an 8.62% rise in receipts. The area registered 159,429 tourist arrivals and 691,036 overnight stays. By September 30, the Paganella Bike Park had recorded increases of 13.5% in passages and 18.5% in receipts. These figures describe the destination and its attractions, not Paganella 2001’s company accounts alone.

That distinction matters: lift-usage and tourism statistics are not a full measure of the wider economic or environmental costs and benefits of growth. Still, the summer figures point to a deliberate shift toward a more continuous season. In 2025, Dolomiti Paganella Bike kept lifts operating in Molveno from mid-April to early November, while its offer included trails for different experience levels and a new route at Andalo.

Company president Gianmaria Toscana described Paganella 2001 as the “beating heart” of an integrated tourism system, citing investment in modernizing the ski area and the challenge of planned snowmaking supplied from Molveno. Provincial officials, meanwhile, emphasized the need to improve the visitor offer and mobility while building a destination attractive throughout the year.

Those ambitions bring a more difficult question into view: how can continued investment support local livelihoods while keeping the area’s tourism model resilient? Snowmaking, transport, infrastructure maintenance and the management of visitor flows all demand long-term decisions. The anniversary coverage points to these issues, but does not provide detailed project costs, water-use figures or a full assessment of their environmental effects. Those details will be important as the area weighs growth against the limits and needs of its mountain setting.

Paganella 2001’s 50th anniversary is therefore both a celebration and a marker of transition. The company was created to manage lifts; today its fortunes are tied to a broader destination strategy—one that spans winter skiing, summer biking, mobility and the well-being of residents. Its next half-century may depend less on adding another season than on making every season work sustainably for the plateau.