Austria gears up to host ski championships fans
Pictured: DoubleTree by Hilton Arlberg.
Two major skiing world championships will be held in Austria over the coming years, with hotel chains preparing to welcome international attendees at a series of new hotels.
According to the TOPHOTELPROJECTS database, at least 59 high end sites will appear in the central European country over the next few years.
Ski double
Austria is set to host tens of thousands of visitors for both the Ski Flying World Championships 2024 in Bad Mitterndorf and the Alpine Ski World Championships 2025 in Saalbach in the centre and the west of the nation, respectively.
In advance of these, over 8,000 hotel rooms will be added to the country’s portfolio to help manage the events’ accommodation demands.
City pickers
Five properties are due to launch in Bad Gastein, just an hour away from Saalbach, while another three will open in the more northerly city of Linz, less than a couple of hours’ journey from the Bad Mitterndorf facilities.
However it is the tourist hub of capital Vienna which still takes the lion’s share of new developments, with another 22 hotels scheduled.
Upscale newbuildings
About 64% or 38 of these forthcoming hotels are upscale four star sites, with the remaining 36%/21 properties in the luxury five star category. 44% of the total, equating to 26 projects, are newbuildings, while there are 14 properties in both the refurbishment and conversion categories, representing 24% each. The remaining five projects are extensions.
The pipeline will peak in 2023 with 19 completions, with a further eight due to be delivered before the end of this year and another eight following in 2024. The remaining 24 hotels are either yet to be scheduled or are due in 2025 and beyond.
Independence way
The vast majority of projects are independent hotels, but a few major groups are making an Austrian appearance, including Radisson Hotel Group, with three properties across its Radisson Hotels & Resorts and Radisson Red brands, three for Travel Charme Hotels & Resorts and a further trio for Hilton Worldwide.
One of the latter group’s ski lodges is DoubleTree by Hilton Arlberg, which will feature 137 stylish rooms furnished with natural materials, two restaurants with top international chefs, 1,000 sq m indoor wellness area with steam room, sauna and infra-red cabins and a panorama pool with heated loungers and sweeping views of the mountain peaks in the Bregenz Forest region. It is scheduled to open its doors in Q2 2023.
Another major national project is Mandarin Oriental Vienna which will modify an old court building into a luxury hotel, blending its cultural heritage with innovation and setting new architectural and hospitality standards for the 21st century in Austria. The 151-room property is due to open in Q1 2023.
Many TOPHOTELNEWS articles draw on exclusive information from the TOPHOTELPROJECTS construction database. This subscription-based product includes details of thousands of hotel projects around the world, along with the key decision-makers behind them. Please note, our data may differ from records held by other organisations. Generally, the database focuses on four- and five-star schemes of significant scale; tracks projects in either the vision, pre-planning, planning, under-construction, pre-opening or newly opened phase; and covers newbuilds, extensions, refurbishments and conversions.
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