Infront signs Titlis Rotair Cableways and Lucerne Tourism as joint lead sponsors for women’s curling
Asia a key target market for Lake Lucerne Region
The Championship takes place in Gangneung, Korea, from 21─29 March with 12 participating countries: China, Korea, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Canada, Norway, Russia, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA. This impressive line-up will find strong television audiences in large markets like China, Germany and Canada. As last major qualifying competition before the 2010 Olympic Winter Games the event will thus be of very special interest to winter sports fans.
The Mount Titlis World Women’s Curling Championship
Titlis Rotair, an integrated tourism company located in Engelberg (glacier excursions and snow sport mountaineering) will have the Official Title Sponsor role, with naming rights (Mount Titlis World Women’s Curling Championship) and designation “Official Tourist Destination”. Titlis Rotair operates cable cars, hotels, restaurants and shops in Engelberg, in central Switzerland. This will be supported by a strong and visible advertising package, including in-ice, perimeter board and team uniform advertising, website integration and promotional spots on television. Titlis Rotair will also have promotional stands at the event and will engage in VIP Hospitality.
Lucerne Tourism – designated as Official Sponsor but without naming rights – will have a similar package of rights. The two organisations have a natural fit with each other through geographic proximity – Engelberg is Lucerne’s closest major skiing area – and the fact that a visit to Lucerne is a natural departure point for a trip to Mount Titlis.
At the World Championship, the sponsors will arrange a number of activities to promote Mount Titlis and Lucerne, including special “behind the scene” tours, get-together sessions with teams and coaches as well as a curling tournament for VIP contacts in the venue.
André Küttel, Director Marketing of Titlis Rotair said: “The Asian markets are very important to us – we receive a very large number of visitors from this region every year and the World Curling Championship is an ideal promotional platform for us, because it features a winter sport staged in an Asian venue.”
Marcel Perren, Head of Lucerne Tourism added: “For many visitors to Mount Titlis, Lucerne is on the route and a key tourist destination in its own right – it is extremely popular with visitors from Asia. It makes good sense for us to combine our appeal.”
WCF President Les Harrison said: “This is a good start in the first six months of our new partnership with Infront. This event will be our first joint World Championships together. We look forward to the introduction of the new marketing programme for our top competitions, developed by Infront, which will be introduced from 2010 onwards with the aim to create stronger relationships between the WCF and its commercial partners.”
Bruno Marty, Infront’s Executive Director Winter Sports, added: “Curling is a great sport on television, with really good visibility for sponsors. It’s also a good sport in terms of promotional potential; the WCF is flexible and helpful in its approach and will work with sponsors to organise special events and make curling accessible to fans and sponsors.”
About Titlis Rotair Cableways
Mount Titlis offers a snow and ice experience on the highest viewpoint in Central Switzerland, all year round. This unique glacier paradise is centrally located and easy to reach, just a short distance from Lucerne, Zurich, Basel and Berne. Going up to the top in the world's first revolving gondola ROTAIR is like being an eagle, exploring the landscape of the glacier world. Titlis Rotair offers a great diversity of attractions like riding the ICE FLYER chairlift over the glacier crevasses or having fun while snow tubing at the TITLIS GLACIER PARK. Besides snow tubes, different snow toys can be used to slide down a snow track, fun for sure! In the GLACIER CAVE, the glacier can be experienced from the inside. The MOUNTAIN FLOWER TRAIL can be explored, while hiking around the green fields of lake Trübsee. On the way back to the village of Engelberg, guests can enjoy the TROTTI-BIKE ride. Engelberg-Titlis is the largest winter sport area in Central Switzerland
About Lucerne Tourism
Lucerne Tourism (Lucerne Tourism Ltd) is the centre of competence for positioning, public relations, marketing and guest services on behalf of around 100 partners which offer and sell first class tourism services in the Lucerne – Lake Lucerne Region. The authenticity and the high quality of the services and products offered within the region are in the strategic focus of the duties and responsibilities of Lucerne Tourism.
Infront and Winter Sports
Infront Sports & Media, based in Zug, Switzerland, is the strongest, most experienced marketing agency in the winter sports arena. It has focused strongly on developing its role in winter sports in recent years, to the point that it now represents six of seven Olympic winter sport federations at international level. The Group is the commercial partner of more than 90% of all national skiing federations hosting FIS Alpine Ski and Nordic World Cup races. It also markets the FIS World Championships. It has a long term partnership with the IIHF in international ice hockey and relationships with the winter sports of biathlon, bobsleigh and skeleton, curling and luge.
For further information, please contact:
Jörg Polzer
Manager, Communication & PR
Infront Sports & Media AG
Tel. +41-41-723 15 15
Fax +41-41-723 15 16
press infrontsports.com
www.infrontsports.com
George Karrys
Media Relations Officer
World Curling Federation
Tel. +1-905-997 33 48
media worldcurling.org
www.worldcurling.org
André Küttel
Marketing Director
Titlis Rotair Cableways AG
Tel. +41-41-639 50 50
Fax +41-41-639 50 60
akuettel titlis.ch
www.titlis.ch
Marcel Perren
CEO / Director of Tourism
Lucerne Tourism
Tel. +41-41–277 17 09
Fax +41–41–277 17 18
marcel.perren luzern.com
ww.luzern.com
