The Magdas Hotel in Vienna offers jobs and training to multilingual former asylum seekers – while making a political statement about the plight of refugees in Europe

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Suitcases are artfully arranged in the hotel entrance hall … and a striking campaign poster opposite the check-in desk urges an end to migrant deaths in the Mediterranean. Receptionist Dinis knows a bit about the journey. While “not in a small boat like those coming recently”, the 29-year-old from Guinea-Bissau tells me he also came to Europe smuggled aboard a ship.

A teenage activist who exposed corruption, Dinis fled his home and is now among a team of multilingual former asylum seekers staffing the Magdas Hotel in Vienna. This former retirement home was turned into a boutique hotel with €1.5m loan from the charity Caritas and €60,000 raised through crowdfunding. With individual design touches in each of its 78 rooms, its retro style, including knitted lampshades and sassy murals, have been charming guests since it opened near the city’s Prater park in February.

Of the 28 staff, 20 arrived in Austria as refugees, and the project’s underlying purpose is to offer them jobs and training. “We also want to make a political statement that whoever is in Austria legally should also be able to work legally,” says Martin Gantner of Caritas. “It’s pointless for society that these people remain unemployed for so long; they often have many untapped skills.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photos of the hotel staff - Dinis is on the left. Photograph: Paul Kranzler/PR

Asylum seekers in Austria (as in the UK) are rarely granted the right to work before their application is processed. For 38-year-old Maryam, who greets guests at breakfast in several languages, this took until 12 years after she escaped her native Morocco, where she was persecuted for being a lesbian.

Thousands like her face long periods of forced unemployment, and difficulties in finding jobs afterwards. “Every day we read in the newspapers about Europe’s immigration ‘problem,’” says Gantner. “We’re trying to offer solutions. Through Magdas, people are learning different ways of relating to migrants.”

The hotel’s workers are paid according to industry standards, from around €20,000 a year for the least-qualified.

Dinis is one of the better-educated but even he received numerous rejection letters before starting at Magdas, whose “stay open-minded” philosophy he says means real career prospects. Ehsan, a shy 24-year-old who walked alone for more than six months to escape the Taliban in Afghanistan, says he’s found a new family among fellow staff.

Magdas (“mag das”) is a wordplay essentially suggesting you should “like this”. As the 1950s-chic bar fills up with music and chatter on a weekend evening, it’s clear that guests, staff and the local volunteers who complete this social enterprise genuinely do.

• Double rooms from €72, +43 1 720 0288, magdas-hotel.at.



Other tourism businesses offering opportunities to migrants and marginalised people



Scalabrini Guest House in Cape Town employs migrants and funds projects to support asylum seekers in South Africa.

Mazi Mas, in London and Sydney, are pop-up restaurants employing migrant women.

Friends the Restaurant in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and Vientiane, Laos, are training restaurants for marginalised youth.

Kiboko Lodge in Tanzania is run by former street children.

At Grandhotel Cosmopolis in Augsburg, Germany, refugees and hotel guest stay in different sections of the same building, but get to mingle.

Skuhna in Ljubljana, Slovenia, is a multicultural cafe employing migrant cooks.