An Austrian hotelier let some parts of his hotel to a doctor to run her surgery. The doctor offered health treatments related to cardiovascular diseases to the hotel guests as well as outsiders whereas the appointments were to be made through the hotel recpetion and – as far as hotel guests were concerned – treatments were billed together with the room fee.Local authorities accused the hotelier of having turned his hotel into a hospital or sanatorium without the necessary licence and imposed administrative fines on him. He appealed to the Austrian Administrative Court. In a decison of Dec. 12, 2008 (Case 2006/11/0093), Administrative Court held that the services rendered by the hotelier would not amount to the typical services of a hospital or sanatorium and there was no evidence that the furnishing of the hotel had been similar to such institutions. The Court therefore repealed the penalty as unlawful.
