MCI Tourism visits destination partner Schladming-Dachstein

Every year, the MCI Tourism team visits the destination partner for its strategy meeting. This year, for the first time, it took place in Styria.

After visits to Tyrolean and Salzburg destination partners in Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis (2008/09), Ischgl (2009/10), Kitzbühel (2010/11), St. Anton am Arlberg (2011/12), Pitztal (2012/12), Stubai (2013/14), Innsbruck (2014/15), Seefeld (2015/16), Ötztal (2016/17), Saalfelden-Leogang (2017/18), Achensee (2018/19), Zell am See-Kaprun (2019/20), a one-year Covid-19 break (2020/21) and Axamer Lizum (2021/22) with destination partner Tirol Werbung, there was a particularly long journey this year. Our journey took us all the way to Styria, to the beautiful Schladming.

The development of the region began in the 1970s. At that time it was a question of whether Schladming would hold the World Ski Championships. The prerequisite for this was the construction of a hotel. This was realised with the Sporthotel Royer and Schladming hosted the first Alpine World Ski Championships in 1982. The 42nd Alpine World Ski Championships followed in 2013. The destination has also become famous for the Nighrace on the Planai, which took place for the 26th time at the end of January 2023. With 1.5 million Austrian TV viewers, this race is ahead of the Streif with 1.1 million TV viewers. In addition, there are another 45,000 viewers on site.

Winter continues to be the dominant season, even though summer is catching up more and more. For the first time, the region recorded more summer overnight stays than winter overnight stays in the summer of 2022, positioning itself more and more as a year-round destination. To this end, the low season is to be revived even more in the future. The Schladming-Dachstein region in the upper Enns Valley did not merge until October 2021 and thus dared to take this step much later than Tyrol. The step was less politically driven, but all the more emotional. In the meantime, however, we have managed to get everyone on board and to establish ourselves as a strong destination.

We would like to thank Mathias Schrattleitner and Julia Schram for the great welcome and the insights into this exciting region.