Marc Binder Scores One for Passion
Studio 54, photo: Maeshelle West-Davies
A year ago Marc Binder would have never expected to be doing this interview. He was just doing what he loved; decorating. With his own flat finished, he looked for something else to turn his attention to.
His job is to buy energy from renewable sources to sell on the energy exchange. His territory is Germany and he has a home office. Sometimes the bed is closer than the computer, so he thought it’d be nice to take a studio as an office. Once he had decorated it, it seemed a waste to use it as an office, so he offered it up as his own little guest flat for incoming visitors. Just to see what would happen, he placed it on several accomodation sites. And the rest, as they say, is history. In no time at all, he was booked between 70-80% of the time.
Since the space was a studio and the street number was 54, he decided to call it Studio 54, but you won’t find any disco balls there. Instead you enter to a tastefully designed space where you immediately feel at home.
Marc Binder enjoys a cup of tea at Studio 54, photo: Maeshelle West-Davies
In January he won Landlord of the Year 2011 from Home Away in the category of creative services. Of course he did! He has a great concept. The space is centrally located and because you are in a normal residential building, you feel like you live here rather than like you’re a tourist. The flat has a fully equipped kitchen, dining area, flat screen tv that swivels to your view no matter where you are, a full bed, a couch that folds out into another full bed, use of two bikes, free coffee and tea, wi-fi, plus free pick-up service from the airport or train station. How’s THAT for service!
Marc says that since receiving the award his hits have gone from 150 a month to 1500. Things have been going so well on Reimannstr that he’s opened another place on Paul List St. He really likes making people happy and they definitely feel at home in his space. He says the guests fall into a wide range and come from all over the world. He’s had people in for the Goth Festival to a group of four women from the US and UK who studied here and come back for a reunion every five years. Being on the German holiday rental site Fewo Direkt automatically puts you on the Home Away site and people from all over can easily find it.
One year later, and 10 years younger, he’s franchising the idea under the name of Studio 44 throughout Germany. So now you can open your own in your city and benefit from his success and he still gets to have his passion. Each location will be unique and yet recognizable through the same bedding and color scheme.
Regional flight services withdrawn from Altenburg!
The discount airline carrier Ryanair will terminate their final route from Altenburg Airport when the current Winter flight schedule ends on March 26, 2011. After ongoing discussions between Altenburg Airport, Altenburg Local Council, Ryanair and Thürigen’s state government, no agreement was reached regarding the continued funding arrangements for the regional airport. Despite the support of local business and the Altenburg community, attempts to raise more capital have failed to convince the state government that the airport at its current capacity may become financially viable.
The chairman of the supervisory board (district of Altenburg), Sieghardt Rydzewski, praised the efforts of locals to retain the airport, stating “I am very pleased about the fantastic support from our region, that proves again, how important the future running of the site for our business and citizens is”. He expressed frustration over the delayed announcement of the findings of the Leipzig-Altenburg Airport study, after waiting for over a year. When the findings were made public in September 2010, the Thüringen government announced a decision to put its financial support behind Erfurt as the region’s sole airport. With 95% of custom, the continued subsidies paid to support 5% of services was deemed financially unsustainable. The Altenburg Airport continues to run at a loss, and even a tripling of passenger numbers over the next five years could not be expected to put revenue into the black. The state government will no longer subsidize the cost of insurance (running at 250,00 Euros this year), after investing 17 million euros in the airport since 1992. Erfurt sees the only possible future for the Altenburg Airport in private and business enterprise, and not with budget airline carriers such as Ryanair.
The difficult relationship between the government in Erfurt and Altenburg regarding the running of the airport dates back to the beginning of commercial flights in 2002. Two years into operation, the government in Erfurt withdrew permission for aeroplanes weighing over 14 Tonnes to land on the Altenburg airstrip due to the height of nearby trees. This resulted in planes being diverted to Erfurt in December 2004. Protests ensued and after re-examining whether the trees stood in Saxony or Thuringia, and also whether they stood within a protected heritage area, they were eventually felled so that services could resume in January, 2005. The airport also had issues with its re-branding as Altenburg (Leipzig) by Ryanair in 2008, with legal action resulting in the dropping of Leipzig from the title. The airport had also undertaken significant improvements including the expansion of the airport building, and increased advertising space, in a bid to retain services. This followed a growth in patronage in 2009 of approximately 140,000 up from 105,000 passengers in 2006. The continued operating deficit will however no longer be absorbed by the state government.
Ryanair’s retreat from Altenburg has been gradual with the cancellation of their routes to Edinburgh and Barcelona in 2009. The cancellation of it’s most popular flight to London Stansted airport is a significant blow for those wishing to travel to the United Kingdom, following the cancellation by Air Berlin of the Leipzig/Halle to London route in January 2008, citing night-time flying restrictions. Ryanair recently announced that four regional flights will now operate out of Magdeburg to Spain, but that this decision is not connected to their withdrawl from Altenburg. A flight to London after March 2011 will no longer be possible through regional airlines, with Berlin becoming the nearest direct connection.
Rachael Clugston