BBT ONLINE MEETING & EVENTING IDEAS
- IN AUSTRIA’S TIROL

By Bruce Taylor

A small group of corporate & association meeting planners from Belgium took part in a 3 day inspection tour in the Tirol, prior to access 2006, Austria’s annual MICE industry showcase. And BBT Online went along to make an exclusive report.

WHY TIROL?
It’s all mountains & fresh air, and fresh mountain air stimulates the brain.
Tirol is a pioneer in mountain meetings & events.

• High standard of hotels & venues offering quality-for-money.
• Variety of summer & winter sporting activities.
• Honest food & strong traditional sense of welcome & service.

A small group of corporate & association meeting planners from Belgium took part in a 3 day inspection tour in the Tirol, prior to access 2006, Austria’s annual MICE industry showcase. And BBT Online went along to make an exclusive report.
 
We were met at Innsbruck airport by Flora from the Tirol Convention Bureau with a big smile, baguettes and passion fruit juice at the height of a Tyrolean Indian summer. We took off for Seefeld and climbed up above to the Interalpen Hotel Tyrol, just 25km northwest of Innsbruck.

WHERE TO MEET & RELAX?
‘The Interalpen was a real highlight – it’s near Innsbruck and there are so many possibilities for spouses’, Fanny Lo Presti, SEMI Europe, Brussels

The Interalpen Hotel is simply extraordinary – it’s a grandiose fantasy surrounded by mountains, and the fantasy starts in the drive-in underground lobby, extends throughout the whole hotel and ends in the palatial suites on the 7th floor.

It is pure 5* luxury, built in the shape of a Mercedes star with conference facilities for up to 400; 286 incredibly spacious apartments, suites & single rooms, furnished in Tyrolean style; beds for 600 guests; a 5.000m² spa with every treatment under the sun; an indoor/outdoor heated pool; 6 restaurants; 232 staff….
 
Everything about the Interalpen Hotel is larger than life and it’s more like a self-contained resort than a hotel. There’s skiing 15km away, plus one of the highest and most beautiful golf courses in the world next door – at 1250m and only playable, May to October, although who knows in future with global warming.

They host some 200 events a year which account for over 20.000 bednights.
I could go on ……just see for yourself instead.
www.interalpen.com

Contact: Ruth Mockel
Meetings & Events Manager
ruth.mockel@interalpen.com

WHERE TO INCENTIVE IN A BIG WAY
…AND DINE IN A SMALL GROUP?
…in Seefeld, of course. With 36 x 4* & 5 x 5* hotels highly concentrated in a small area, the town is ideal for meetings & incentives. In 1998 Seefeld won a bid against 90 other destinations to stage the launch of the new VW Beetle and welcomed 1000 participants a day back-to-back over 17 days.
They plan a new congress centre for 2008. 
www.seefeld.at

A traditional farmhouse from South Tirol, the Kracherlemoos has been lovingly restored and turned into a cosy restaurant with 5 separate dining areas. A young team offers excellent local dishes and original cuisine.
info@kracherlemoos.at
www.kracherlemoos.at

WHERE TO EVENT?
‘I’ve done 3 weeks work in 3 days. I’m particularly impressed by St. Anton and I have met a lot of hotels with good rates’, Monique Petrus, Nokia Mobile Phones

Right on the Tirol’s western border, the attractive town of St. Anton-am-Arlberg is reached along a narrow series of valleys with towering mountains on either side. These valleys are interconnected by a succession of engineering miracles under the mountains.

The Arlberg-well.com styles itself as a ‘centre for wellness & communication’ and an event destination with a flexible modern hall of 1620m², suitable for congresses, concerts, tennis etc. It also has a public spa area for wellness & relaxation.

St. Anton has 9.500 beds, 2000 of which are in 4 & 5* hotels. And there are good train connections from all over Europe.
marketing@arlberg-well.com
www.arlberg-well.com

HOW TO TEAMBUILD?
h2o promises adventure, fun & emotion around St. Anton and there was certainly lots of that in store for our small group who tried out a tree-top rope experience. Well it was hardly tree-tops if one’s honest – it was probably about 4m high and looked pretty simple from the ground. Only when you got up there and the ropes started to sway, did it start to look a long way down - as anyone who has ever suffered from vertigo will know.

Harald Wolf and his team are experts in all the detail of soft-to-hard adventure. They are part sportsmen/part psychologists who encourage and tempt you to go on and surpass yourself. Even I did part of the tree walk. The first to finish in our group was a grandmother of 5!

h2o also organises canyoning, rafting, mountain biking and something called tarzan&jane’s which includes the Flying Fox, Rollercoaster, Flying Tree, ‘Strickleiter’…I have no idea what any of them are, but they sound a tad too adventurous for me. These are mainly summer sports. In winter they do other challenges around skiing.
info@h2o-adventure.at
www.h2o-adventure.at

And after a day’s excitement out in such majestic scenery, an event organiser can take over the cosy St. Anton Ski Museum for a group meal, where all the participants can share their experiences - successes & failures - over a delicious Tyrolean meal and some good ‘après sport’!
www.stantonamarlberg.com

WHERE TO SEMINAR?
As you drive through the Tirol, you come across more attractive hotels per square metre than almost anywhere else in the world. Many are still family-run and all are neat, tidy, well kept and adorned with flowers. An amazing number seem to have re-invested and upgraded their facilities to offer pools, saunas & wellness centres.

On the southwest border at 2000m and just 15 kilometres from Italy, you find the town of Obergurgl (sounds more like a gurgling mountain stream) which consists almost entirely of this type of hotel.

Just above Obergurgl (what a lovely name!) is the University of Innsbruck’s study centre. It has 40 comfortable but fairly basic rooms for 90 people and hosts many academic meetings in science, geology and sports medicine. In winter people Meet n’Ski here – they work in the morning, have an ‘open discussion’ on the ski slopes (14h-16h) and then it’s back to work…..a very healthy meeting indeed.

There’s a modern lecture hall for 120 small classrooms for nature research; a library; computers with a geological satellite system; sauna (the 1st in Europe at this altitude!) & steam bath – all for around 60 Euros half board. In summer it’s available for groups of students at from 25 Euros.
www.universitycenter-obergurgl.at

WHAT’S NEW IN INNSBRUCK?
‘I loved Innsbruck’, Fanny Lo Presti, SEMI Europe, Brussels

Innsbruck’s Old Town is medieval and romantic. The city is young-at-heart with some 130.000 inhabitants, 25.000 of whom are students. As with most places in Austria, the best way to discover it is on foot.

Congress Innsbruck
This award-winning congress & exhibition centre is impressive, even when totally deserted on a Sunday. I live in hope that one day Convention Bureaux will organise inspection tours to coincide with successful conferences, so that you can see dead buildings come alive. At the very least, they should show visitors a filmed success story, so you get a real feel for the place and its possibilities.

Congress Innsbruck has a 1.900m hall for exhibitions, balls, festivals and gala events and the Tyrol room is the largest plenary hall in the region.

From March 2007 a new cable car station will link the congress centre in the heart of the city to the Nordkette Mountains at 2.000m, opening up great new opportunities for lunchtime skiing breaks and social programmes during conferences.
www.come-innsbruck.at

Opened in January 2007, just 10 minutes from Innsbruck at 910m is the brand new Igls Congresspark, an exclusive venue for up to 300 where ‘the air is different, the quiet more peaceful & nature more wonderful’. The centre is also operated by Congress Innsbruck.
www.congresspark-igls.at

Just a few minutes walk away from Congress Innsbruck is the recently opened Hotel Congress which is part of the Austria Trend group. Minimalist in design, it is full of colour and light. As you would expect, it has state-of-the-art meeting facilities for 210, in addition to 104 rooms; 2 suites with roof terraces & 360º views; a wellness centre etc.
www.austria-trend.at/chi

FOR MORE TYROLEAN IDEAS & INFO?
‘Prices are much more reasonable than people say,’ Kristof Adriansens representing the Vademecum communication agency in Brussels

I knew Swarovski was Austrian and I recently learned that both Red Bull & Carpe Diem were also invented here. What I discovered on this visit is another Austrian secret, the hiking drink Almdudler which is made from mountain herbs. Non-alcoholic and very refreshing, although I must say I do prefer the local beer.

PS: And don’t forget all the excellent skiing in this region around which you can build an incentive, an event or even a meeting.

Flora Oberhammer (in the middle)
flora.oberhammer@tirolmarketing.at
www.convention.tirol.at

Nadja Horvatek (on the left)
Marketing Manager – France & Benelux
nadja.horvatek@austria.info
b2b: www.austria-tourism.biz/fr

A WORD ABOUT VIENNA
‘Vienna is a good place for a congress’, Pierre Costa, FEMIN, Brussels
‘Vienna is such a romantic city’, Bianka Nagy, EUPC Brussels

Believe it or not, in 37 years in tourism this was my first visit to Vienna and although it was far too short, the city lived up to all my expectations. It is easy to understand why it’s one of the world’s eternal and most popular meeting places.
Vienna breathes life, beauty & quality.   

I walked and walked, and on every corner I found yet another elegant building at which to stand & stare, open-mouthed in admiration and wonder.
www.vienna.convention.at

We couldn’t get into the Sacher Hotel for some much-needed coffee and a Sacher-Torte, so we took a fascinating tour of the hotel with its Belgian Sales Manager, Georges van Gool. The hotel was built in 1876 and new rooms were added in 2005. The Sacher is a treasure trove with 1.200 original paintings and each room is an art gallery…
www.sacher.com

If you’re looking for conference entertainment, there’s Aleksey Igudesman’s brilliant Music & Comedy Company which performed at the access welcome night at another of Vienna’s magical venues, the Niederoesterreich Palace. The international language of music is of course one of Vienna’s strongest selling points, when it comes to the social side of a conference.
www.musicandcomedy.com

…..AND ACCESS 2006/2007?
‘I found what I was looking for – new ideas for events & incentives – and access is on a far more human scale than all those big fairs’, Filip Van Der Poorten, Mercator Insurance, Antwerp.

access is a showcase for the Austrian meeting industry. Every Austrian region was present in force. The hospitality was lavish; the Hofburg Congress Center as a venue simply outstanding but the access e-academy turned out to be disappointing – too serious, too theoretical & too academic. It needed some practical case histories and some lighter German to translate.

My advice for access 2007-goers is to spend a day with Austria’s many original venues in the Hofburg Palace and then go out and discover the delights of Christian Mutschslecner’s Vienna.

Access 2007 takes place 1-2 October.

More info:
on access 2007: www.abcn.at
on the venue: www.hofburg.com

A WORD OF THANKS TO AUSTRIAN AIRLINES
….and their genuinely smiling & friendly cabin crews who brought in over 300 Hosted Buyers for access & the inspection tours.
….to Tyrolean for flying us between Vienna & Innsbuck and back
……and not least to abcn & the Tirol Convention Bureau for their organisation.