Saalbach Passes The World Championships Baton To Crans
In two years, Crans-Montana will be able to present itself as the host of the alpine worls ski championships – a delegation visited Saalbach and collected positive impressions.
The Ski World Championships in SalzburgerLand had a big international impact: more than 20 TV stations reported live from the races, which were broadcast in a total of 50 countries around the world. It's not just the fans who are enthusiastic - before the men's slalom on Sunday, more than 150,000 watched the races in the stadium, and the TV ratings in Austria brought in up to 1.5 million viewers. A high-ranking delegation from Switzerland was also impressed by the high quality of the event, the atmosphere and warm hospitality, as well as the smooth running of the event.
It was in this spirit that the symbolic handover to Crans-Montana took place, where the next Ski World Championships will take place in two years. The importance of this top international sporting event for tourism was particularly evident. The Salzburg governor, Wilfried Haslauer, handed over the World Championship relay to Fréderic Favre , State Councillor of Valais-Wallis. "You have set the bar very high for us. Congratulations on a perfect World Championship, everything is just right here," said Favre, paying tribute to the Salzburg organisation team. The tourism director of Valais/Wallis Promotion, Damian Constantin , and Nicolas Féraud , President of the Crans-Montana municipality, also took many positive impressions back to Switzerland.
"We have shown that we can perfectly organize a Ski World Championship," said Salzburg Governor Wilfried Haslauer in an initial summary. "This is thanks to the community and the organizers around the ÖSV and of course especially to the emergency organizations and many volunteers. We have been able to set a benchmark with this World Championship, experienced an incredibly positive atmosphere and were able to inspire people. This World Championship will be remembered for a long time."
Leo Bauernberger , Managing Director of the SalzburgerLand Tourism Company (SLTG), adds: "Over the past two weeks, we have presented ourselves to the entire winter sports world as a friendly host country. The international ski community was our guest and we were able to perfectly underline our core competence as a tourist country - winter sports. SalzburgerLand has succeeded in putting a special stamp on this event; excellent work has been done for the ski nation of Austria."
