The greatest challenges in hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games are the long distances that so often separate the ice events in the city from the snow events in the mountains. These distances are often complicated by narrow alpine roads that restrict or limit access to remote venues. Salzburg 2014 has eliminated those distances with two venue clusters that are only 30 minutes apart—and it has eliminated the complications by aligning 10 of the 11 venues in its plan in locations that ensure access by its robust train system or autobahns.
Over the last 15 years, more than USD 1.15 billion has been invested in Salzburg’s extraordinary urban to alpine transportation system, creating an infrastructure that will serve the Winter Games with efficiency and timeliness.
As Gernot Leitner, Executive Director of Salzburg’s bid recently said, “There has never been such a compact Winter Games plan with such a powerful mass transit system at its heart.”
Salzburg’s existing train system is already capable of delivering up to 20,000 people an hour to many of the venues in the plan, offering the IOC an advanced state of readiness that reduces risk in the organizational process.
To ensure this robust transport system works effectively for the Games, Salzburg 2014 has put great emphasis on designing an integrated accommodation and transport system that will efficiently serve all groups attending the Games, meeting the logistical demands of the work force, media and volunteers while ensuring that all spectators get to their events with ease in order to enjoy the warm alpine hospitality Salzburg offers.
In transportation:
Together, Salzburg’s existing infrastructure in accommodations and infrastructure form an advanced model of readiness that ensures the promise of a magical Winter Games experience will be delivered for all. A few facts support this contention:
Salzburg’s 4- and 6-lane autobahns connect the ice cluster and the snow cluster in less than 30 minutes, with less than 3% incline from the city centre right into the heart of the alpine snow region. In addition, and for the first time in the history of Olympic Winter Games, there are two lane train high-speed tracks parallel to the autobahns that take all guests in minutes from Salzburg to the snow events plus a fully developed national road. Moreover, there are two more fully developed national roads connecting the ice and snow cluster. Public mass transport in the Land of Salzburg is effective and efficient day in, day out, carrying passengers more than 25 million kilometers per year.
From its location at the crossroads of Europe, Salzburg has the unique advantage of offering easy access to a population of 150 million, including 40 million young people, living in 16 surrounding nations, who could experience a “once-in-a-lifetime Olympic experience in a single day”. Thus, sport fans in Europe who would like to experience the stunning atmosphere of Olympic Winter Games in Salzburg have also the choice to come by car or train – over night.
International access is equally convenient—Salzburg’s international airport, which is the largest winter charter-airport in the European Union, features a new terminal that boosts capacity to Olympic levels of 40.000 passengers a day. Eight major European hubs, Barcelona, Berlin, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt, London, Paris, Vienna, and Zuerich, offer direct flights to a new terminal ready for Olympic capacities.
In Accommodations:
“A warm winter welcome” is what guests from all over the world can enjoy when they spend their vacation time in Salzburg. With its well developed hospitality infrastructure and a very high standard of international service, Salzburg alone attracts, welcomes – and expertly and efficiently accommodates – more than 5.3 million guests each year from 121 countries, accumulating a total of 23.1 million overnight stays. In fact, more than 67,000 rooms are available within a 50 km radius of Salzburg, 100.000 rooms in a radius of 80km, to suit all tastes, budgets and requirements.
The city of Salzburg has one of the highest densities of existing 4 and 5 star hotels in Europe despite the fact that just 150,000 inhabitants live in Salzburg. Overall, Salzburg 2014 has over 25,000 contracted rooms in all categories within the predetermined radiuses. The range of accommodation reflects the breadth and scope of Austrian culture and society itself.
The athletes, being the centre of the Winter Games in Salzburg, will be accommodated in two villages in the heart of the two venue clusters (snow and ice) to experience highest convenience and a magical experience: With an average travel time of only 12 minutes to the venues of all competitions and direct access to the motorway, athletes can enjoy their stay in Salzburg, can concentrate on their competitions and still experience the flair of the Games being only minutes away from the city centre and the Medals’ Plaza.
The subject of accommodation and hospitality is always critical when considering the enormous influx of visitors the Winter Games generate. But, Salzburg knows how to treat guests and is highly experienced in treating visitors as kings, in a place, where kings were once guests. Salzburg is ready to host the Olympic family, the sports enthusiasts, and the visitors from all over the world.
In Summary:
In all accommodations clusters, centrally located connecting points will be served by circulating coaches and vans to ensure that all guests can attend the Olympic and Paralympic competitions or the Medal ceremonies on convenient and time efficient schedules. These shuttles will move from the collection hubs directly to the city centre where transportation to all venues will be provided in the traditional and tested manner: by rapid train system, train or bus. Same for the accredited media representatives: From the various Media Hotel Clusters they will be taken to the MMC where all transportation to all venues will be provided.
Gernot Leitner, Executive Director Salzburg 2014: “Salzburg’s Games concept is compact, its transportation plan is tailor made to each Olympic group, from the athletes to the fans, and one of the great operational strengths of Games in Salzburg,” said Leitner. “There are no long distances, no narrow alpine roads, no bottlenecks, just efficient and proven transportation systems. The same high standards exist in the accommodation concept: It is charming, convenient and highly professional. The integrated transportation and accommodation plan, has enough capacity and contingency to satisfy all the IOC constituent groups and to enable them to experience unforgettable, magical Games in Salzburg in 2014.”
The Warter Family: Generations that Prove the Promise of Salzburg:
To give you a life example here is a statement from a typical Salzburger hotelier family. The Warters operate a hotel with 46 rooms located in Flachau, one of the snow venues in the Salzburg 2014 plan.
Father and mother Warter have handed over their hotel to their son Daniel and his wife. It is a typical high quality four-star hotel with 46 rooms.
Daniel Warter: When we were asked in 2006 to sign the contract with the Salzburg 2014 Bid Company, we did not hesitate a second to hand over our rooms for a possible Olympic Winter Games use.
Our region has a great tradition, as well as our hotel has. Established in 1774, our family runs it since 1875.
Tourism, in our sense of understanding, does not mean to squeeze the most out of guests. And there is a simple reason for it. We, too, live here, it was our parents’ home and will be our childrens’, and nearly all of the tourist infrastructure, hotels, shops, ski centres and other companies belong to families, living here for generations.
Guests, lots of them coming for decades to the same villages and hotels, became friends, know the families and you would not believe how many young guests fell in love and got married here. Lots of our guests, and I can speak for my colleagues as well, call our region their „second home“. In my opinion, that will not work in hotels with 500 rooms or more. But that is just my opinion.
Our region always withstood big companies to turn it into a pure money making machine, and believe me there were lots of offers. Sticking to these principles, we are not just able to make our living, but to live in a lovely, clean and therefore rich region. The concept our parents started works.
I heard the Salzburg 2014 slogan “Innovation through Tradition -Tradition through Innovation” some days ago for the first time. But that is exactly what happens here. When our parents turned the region into a winter sports resort, with great efforts, it was, innovative and now it is “tradition”. But with preserving nature in every possible way with biodynamic food, water power and biomass electricity, and smooth changes in infrastructure, our small communities can be seen as a role model – therefore an innovation.