LOOKING INTO THE FUTURE WITH….. JOSEF ZOTTER

We, the Tourism Schools Bad Gleichenberg, want to inspire our students to create the future they want to live in themselves. The power to do so is the most important asset of each young generation. In our series “Looking into the future with…” we do invite role models, key players and visionaries to give us an insight of what they think the future will look like.

This time chocolatier Josef Zotter, who is this year’s winner of the Styrian Tourism Panther Lifetime Achievement Award and laureate of the famous Walter Scheel Medaille is giving an insight on his vision of our future.
The Schokoladen Manufaktur Zotter is an outstanding example of a Styrian success story with an oversea outlet in Shanghai, more than 200 employees. More than 270.000 visitors from all over the world are coming every year to ZOTTER Experience in Bergl in our Südoststeiermark….

1. If you would need to start again from the very beginning – i.e. if you would be in our shoes – what would you do differently, also regarding the challenges which affect our society recently and regarding the climate change, demographic change, digitalization …

Well, honestly, I cannot think of anything I would do differently now … from then.

Everything you mentioned here are things we did not know before. However, what we can do …. is change something in the future. Exactly now in this Corona crisis our lives will change drastically. And I think it will be to the better… because now for example many climate political issues are addressed.

2. How do you judge the Austrian population as far as their sustainable life style is concerned?

Many Austrians act in a very future-oriented way and focus on “tomorrow”. That means they want to start their lives tomorrow … it would be better to start it today. What happened yesterday will not take us any further.

3. What do you think, in which direction will sustainable consumption develop and how can you contribute to it as entrepreneur?

Josef Zotter with family and ZOTTER team members

Unfortunately, at the moment this is hard to answer because right now we do not know how the economic situation will further develop after the Corona crisis. If it comes to simply surviving, very probably sustainability will come second … this is how people normally react and this unfortunately are no good news. We (from Zotter) will continue to promote our topics of organic + fair + insourcing instead of outsourcing. But, we also need to survive from an economic point of view… and now listen carefully: We always followed the motto of never doing what most people do.

4. What are the three most important contents that to your mind should be taught at a tourism school?
   

When dealing with guests … who are on vacations (What can I do for you?)…You know.
I do not know how to describe this. But price awareness/true-cost pricing must be transmitted better in order to be able to pass it on also to the guests. This is possible only with a special service…moaning will not help at this point.

A very sensitive topic – Get rid of all buffets and self-service areas…wherever possible. I know that they are more cost-effective, but they do not fulfill the holiday desire, because there guests need to get everything on their own. At this point they could also have stayed at home.

Of course, therefor we have a systemic gastronomy. I love it if breakfast is served to me. And a fresh flower is left in my hotel room.

5. Keyword edible zoo: You are promoting an alternative though traditional way of animal husbandry and farming or rather of meat consumption. Do you think that we as society in 3 or 4 decades can do mainly without meat or animal products or will this remain a minority trend?

Well, according to forecasts, we will soon find in-vitro meat on our plates. We are supporting such a research project in the US recently and soon it might be possible to cultivate cells from animals from our edible zoo and use them to produce our meat. So, in the future you could go to our edible zoo and see the animals and pet them…while eating a burger from this particular animal that is still alive. This is an ingenious outlook. So, in the future we might not need to kill animals to eat meat anymore. I know, from an ethic point of view…

6. One personal question: Do you eat meat?

Not much. When I am eating outside I am more or less vegetarian…wherever possible (it is not always possible because I do not want to be impolite and explain myself repeatedly) Within the family we eat only the meat from our farm, from the edible zoo with lots of attention … with pleasure and a good preparation … on a beautifully decorated table.

7. Mobility: How will individual traffic develop in the future, in particular in the rural areas? On your parking lot there are numerous cars every day. Would there be a more sustainable way to organise arrivals at your site?

This of course is a huge topic and soon there should and will be alternative solutions. I already requested a bus line, running 6 times a day from the train station in Feldbach to our site and back on road 66. This would already help a lot. I hope that soon there will be more electronically driven vehicles that can drive autonomously… this would almost solve the problem, because such a fleet would not cause such high costs.

8. The industrial states lived at the expense of third world countries for decades. In the case of fair-trade chocolate, the solution is easy – fair payment for good quality. In many other branches, however, it is not that easy and transparent. Do we need to renounce many things in the future so that others will also get their fair share or what would be the solution to your mind?

No, no one needs to renounce. No one wants that. Less and better…and create long-lasting products. (A new mobile phone every two years? Does everyone need to drive his/her personal car?) As humans we need to be careful not to consume more than the planet can produce or more energy that can be produce by the sun. We need to produce products that last longer or that we as consumers can use longer. We do not need 18-course menus in super luxury restaurants. I would prefer 2-3-course menus but with a high quality… something like that … but this is already something known.

Mr. Zotter, thank you for the interview!

Interview questions concepted by Antonia Gutzwar, HL3 student
Due to the corona crisis, we had to sent the interview questions to Mr. Zotter and were not able to hold the interview personally.