Wellness hostel for Laax

The indoor swimming pool in Laax (GR) needs to be renovated, and the municipality as operator wants to combine the pool with a youth hostel in the course of the renovation. "The renovation is unavoidable. In the course of this, we would like to realize a new wellness hostel. By combining the public swimming pool and the youth hostel, we can optimize operations, exploit synergies and thus ensure profitability," says Franz Gschwend, president of the municipality of Laax. The model for the idea is the wellnessHostel4000 & Aqua Allalin in Saas-Fee - according to the Swiss Youth Hostels, the first hostel in the world to offer wellness facilities.

"We are looking forward to building on the successful concept of Saas-Fee in Laax. With the wellnessHostel3000, we can both contribute to the tourism value creation of the community and at the same time offer added value to the local population," says Fredi Gmür, CEO of Swiss Youth Hostels. The main task of the project is the renovation of the Aua Grava indoor swimming pool with its associated wellness and fitness area - this is also to be open to the public in the future. The new wellnessHostel3000 building will be directly attached to the existing infrastructure facility and will offer a capacity of around 150 beds. The project "Mira Val" by SSA Architects from Basel with Ferrari Gartmann Engineers from Chur will be realized.

The municipality approved a planning loan of CHF 850,000 at the beginning of February, giving the green light for further planning of the project. Construction is scheduled to start in spring 2019 and open in winter 2020. The municipality of Laax is acting as the building owner in the project, while the Swiss Youth Hostels and the Swiss Foundation for Social Tourism will be responsible for operating the wellness hostel and indoor pool.