The Edelweiss Salzburg Mountain Resort is an Austrian Alpine luxury hotel.
Michael Huber | Huber Fotografie
It’s early evening at Das Edelweiss Salzburg Mountain Resort, a ski-in, ski-out luxury hotel, about an hour’s drive south of the Austrian city of Salzburg.
There are plenty of Alpine ski-in, ski-out luxury hotels in Austria. But in an industry where repeat business typically hovers around 20–30%, Edelweiss reports over 90% occupancy and a 50% return rate.
The property recently completed a five-year, $94 million expansion that carved 100,000 cubic meters (approximately 3.5 million cubic feet) of rock from the mountain behind the hotel.
Tonight, the owners of the property, the Hetteger family, are about to sit down for dinner. Among them are three generations of Peters. And 14 family members who all work inside the hotel.
Second-generation Peter has just greeted the final guests arriving; daughter-in-law Karin walked over from her office in the back of the house; Hans led the day’s last service rounds; Elke handled the reservations; and Daniel sits down, still in his hiking shoes from leading guests up to a summit hike. The youngest Peter at the table is the third generation and has just turned 12.
As they dine, guests keep coming by to say hello, ask about tomorrow’s activities or comment on last night’s sirloin dinner.
The story of Das Edelweiss began when Peter Hetteger Senior opened a small guesthouse in 1979 in this very spot. Back then, he was only 17 years old and acquired the first plot of land together with his parents. The first Edelweiss was a small inn with 14 rooms and a café.
Multiple expansions followed, bringing the property to 127 keys, including family rooms and penthouse suites with mountain views.
“The one thing I never wanted to hear from anyone that since we took over from the previous generation and expanded, that our service is no longer personal,” says Karin Hetteger, who has run the property with her husband, second-generation Peter, since 2018.
She’s 41, the second generation at the helm and adamant about one thing: growth doesn’t have to mean losing warmth.
Karin and Peter Hetteger took over from the first generation in 2018.
Das Edelweiss Salzburg Mountain Resort
It’s a shift that’s becoming more visible across luxury hospitality right now.
Over the past decades, big chains have implemented standard operating procedures, or SOPs, to give guests consistency among their properties from Atlanta to Zanzibar. Handbooks were written, protocols have been put in place and staff were asked to utilize brand-approved, scripted answers.
Growing Demand For Owner-Operated Hotels
But travelers, particularly the younger generations, are now increasingly looking for something that’s impossible to standardize and mass-produce: genuine human connection and personalized service.
“What travelers really care about now is who owns the property. Because you can feel it, see it and experience it when owners are passionate about their work and doing it for more than a return on investment,” says the CEO of luxury travel advisory firm Virtuoso, Matthew Upchurch.
“Major hotel groups, in their pursuit of more profit, have attempted to standardize and scale what was once a craft,” wrote journalist Colin Nagy in a Skift article on the rising importance of family-owned luxury properties. “What sets family-owned properties apart is their generational perspective. They’re not chasing quarterly profits but building legacies.”
“Luxury used to mean distance: polished, quiet, untouchable,” says Bashar Wali, an industry expert and founder of the consulting company Practice Hospitality. “Today, we associate it with closeness, presence, memory.”
Especially ultrahigh-net-worth individuals, defined as those with more than $30 million in assets, prefer quiet luxury and personalized service.
“The reason we expanded was to give guests ample space and more options to enjoy what they like. If you’re on your honeymoon, you probably don’t want to lie by a pool surrounded by loud families,” says Karin Hetteger.
It turned Edelweiss into a sprawling resort with a grand lobby, a 130,000-bottle-strong wine cellar with five sommeliers on staff overseeing them, four different restaurants, an indoor ninja warrior park, a cinema, a basketball court, enough swimming pools for every day of the week and even an indoor water park with five towering water slides. The spa and wellness areas with saunas, rooftop infinity pools and outdoor gardens stretch across multiple floors, so honeymooners never have to set their eyes on the water park.
A new boutique stocks everything from swimwear to outdoor gear and the ski shop downstairs turns into a mountain bike rental in summer. “We wanted guests to be able to arrive with a carry-on and find everything else here,” says Karin Hetteger.
Personal Phone Calls Prior To Check In
Now that the expansion is complete, Hetteger’s focus is on the service. “Money may build beautiful hotels, but in the end, those spaces are just that: empty stages. The actual performance and daily work is our service.”
Prior to arrival, guests get a call from the reception team to discuss allergies, wine preferences, spa appointments, planned excursions and more. Do you or your kids need ski gear? Do you prefer down or memory foam pillows? Do you have any dietary requirements, or perhaps a favorite wine?
The rooftop pool on the sixth floor of the Das Edelweiss Salzburg Mountain Hotel.
Das Edelweiss Salzburg Mountain Resort
“A lot of planning goes into this pre-arrival process. We want to have everything good to go, even before you set foot in our hotel,” Hetteger explains. “If you want to succeed in top-tier hospitality, you need to make sure your guest feels seen and respected each step of the stay. Calling them ahead of time is a big part of that.”
Talking To Guests Gives Valuable Feedback
Once guests arrive, she makes sure to greet everyone personally at least once during a stay. “I do this because I am the face of the hotel. And I want our guests to know that they can always come to me with anything.”
If guests stay only two or three nights, it’s not an easy task, she admits. ”You really have to stay on top of it to not miss anyone.”
Bashar Wali believes the success of Das Edelweiss Salzburg Mountain Resort comes from Karin and her family being able to narrow this distance between host and guest. “What the Hetteger family does works because it feels real, not automated. And while technology trained people to expect personalization everywhere, it also made everything feel flatter. Luxury hotels now carry the burden of fixing that.”
Every evening, Karin Hetteger walks from table to table during dinner service, asking guests how they enjoyed their day and whether everything in the hotel is according to their expectations.
“If it’s not me, it’s someone else from our family doing the rounds.”
It’s a valuable process, she says, because it builds the relationship with the guest and gives the team valuable feedback they can act upon quickly. “If something is off, we can fix it as quickly as possible.”
Most guests who’ve had a complaint at some point during a stay have turned into repeat customers, she says. “I think this is because we were able to understand what they needed and we connected on an emotional level,” Hetteger says. That’s why, to this day, she also responds to each online review personally. “It takes a lot of time, but the effort is worth it.”
Thanking loyal customers is another big focus. On birthdays, regular guests receive a personal phone call from the reception team. And repeat guests who’ve stayed at Das Edelweiss for 15 years get a personalized napkin embroidered with their name.
“It’s a small gesture, but it’s a genuine sign of appreciation. You should see how happy it makes them—they don’t expect their loyalty to be appreciated in such a big hotel,” Hetteger says.
“Personalization like this works when it costs something: time, attention and effort. It turns a hotel from a product into a relationship. And relationships age well,” explains Bashar Wali.
Staff Can Develop A Sixth Sense For Guests
The other important relationship is with the staff. More than 200 people work at Das Edelweiss. Retaining them is a priority for the Hettegers, so they invested another $12 million into new residences for them.
Good timing, as the hospitality industry currently faces a labor crisis. According to EHL’s 2026 Outlook Report, while there are currently around 371 million hospitality employees worldwide, the sector will need more than 460 million within the next decade. With global travel booming, attracting and retaining talent requires creating workplaces where people feel seen, valued and inspired.
“Only if you have someone work with you for a long time they can develop this sixth sense to anticipate a guest’s needs,” Hetteger says. “Sometimes even before the guest knows.”
Luxury Is When The Guest Feels Seen
While luxury hospitality today is still very much about things like that beautiful infinity pool on the roof and that sirloin steak sizzled to perfection, the difference between a standard stay and an exceptional one lies in the details.
It shows in the receptionist who welcomes you back and remembers your name, in the chef who recalls your dining preferences, in the housekeeping team that prepares your bed with your favorite pillow and in the owner who stops by your table to say hello and ask how your day was.
Industry observers say properties with engaged ownership and strong service cultures are increasingly outperforming larger brands and are positioned to continue doing so.
That’s good news for the Hettegers. As they all sit down for dinner, Karin excuses herself. Some of her regular guests are departing later that evening, and she wants to make sure she says goodbye to them before they leave.
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