Tulfes Bets €16 Million on Faster Lift and Summit Restaurant to Reinvent the Glungezer Ski Area

High above Hall in Tirol,  the small municipality of Tulfes replaces an aging chairlift and builds a striking new summit restaurant at Schartenkogel — a project local officials hope will turn one of Tyrol's quieter family ski hills into a genuine drawcard.

Out with the old lift

The project centers on retiring the existing Schartenkogel lift, a chairlift built in the 1990s whose concession was due to run until 2029. Rather than wait out the concession and then face costly renovation of an increasingly outdated lift, the municipality and the Glungezerbahn operating company opted to replace it now, judging that refurbishing the old lift simply wouldn't have made economic sense given its age.

In its place will rise a new detachable six-seat chairlift, engineered so that chairs slow dramatically for loading and unloading before accelerating to a much faster pace once underway — a format increasingly common on modern Alpine lifts, designed to maximize both passenger comfort and uphill capacity. Despite running a longer route than its predecessor, starting from the base station of the former Kalte Kuchl drag lift, the new lift is expected to complete the journey in just six minutes. The chairlift will operate only in winter; the resort's existing first and second gondola sections will continue to handle summer traffic.

A summit restaurant to match

Alongside the new lift, construction is underway on a new summit restaurant at the top station, with seating for 120 guests. Local officials have been careful to temper expectations on timing: only the basic shell structure will go up this year, with the restaurant's full interior fit-out not completed until the following season. Once finished, the venue will supplement the resort's existing dining options and is expected to become an attraction in its own right, thanks to its modern architecture and panoramic views stretching toward Innsbruck's Hafelekar and Seegrube peaks, down into the lower Inn Valley, and across to the neighboring summits of Haneburger, Malgrübler, Sonntiger and the Glungezer itself.

Local firms, local benefit

Project organizers have made a point of prioritizing regional contractors and materials wherever possible on the build — a decision framed explicitly around keeping the investment circulating within the local economy rather than flowing out to larger, non-regional construction firms.

How it's being paid for

The total project cost is estimated at around €16 million, financed through a mix of sources: a €10 million bank loan, €2.7 million from the regional tourism association (TVB Hall-Wattens), €1 million from the municipality of Tulfes itself, €450,000 from partner municipalities, €500,000 from the regional government's small-ski-area support fund, and the remainder from the lift operating company's own capital. According to Tulfes Mayor Wegscheider, the project remains on schedule and within budget so far. Officials are banking on the investment paying for itself over time, anticipating rising revenue at the Glungezerbahn as more skiers take advantage of the improved lift and dining offering. The new season is slated to open in mid-December.

A rare natural-snow holdout

The stakes are notable given what makes the Glungezer ski area distinctive in the first place. Sitting roughly 12 kilometers from Innsbruck above the historic town of Hall in Tirol, the resort is one of the very few ski areas left in Austria that relies entirely on natural snowfall — there isn't a single snow cannon anywhere on the mountain. That purist approach has made it something of an open secret among locals: a modestly sized, six-lift area offering 22 to 23 kilometers of pistes (spanning easy, intermediate and more demanding terrain), one of Tyrol's longest descents at roughly 15 kilometers, and reliably sunny, panoramic runs overlooking the Inn Valley — all without the infrastructure costs and water demands that come with artificial snowmaking. The resort typically runs from early December through April and has long marketed itself as a family-friendly, well-priced alternative to Tyrol's bigger-name resorts like the Stubaital, Ischgl or the Arlberg.

That reliance on natural snow is precisely what makes the current investment notable: rather than following the well-worn path of adding snowmaking capacity to hedge against inconsistent winters — the approach taken by countless resorts across the Alps in recent years — Tulfes and the Glungezerbahn are doubling down on infrastructure and guest experience instead, betting that a faster lift and a striking new summit restaurant will be enough to draw more skiers to a mountain that has built its identity on staying close to nature. Whether that bet pays off will become clearer when the lift and shell restaurant open this coming December, with the full guest experience following a year later.