Matthias In-Albon, managing director of BDG, is particularly pleased about the award for Friendliest Cable Car Staff. The friendliness of the staff is an essential factor for a successful service company and BDG has worked hard in recent years to achieve continuous improvement. "This recognition is the merit of all employees and a great motivation to maintain this high standard of friendliness," stresses In-Albon. "Friendliness costs nothing, but it is a decisive factor in ensuring that guests come back again." 

"On the right track"
In these exceptional times, BDG is particularly pleased about the awards, which showed that the summer positioning was successful and that further investments can be made in the direction taken. "I am very proud of the prizes won and am particularly pleased about the awards which go directly to our employees. Gold for 'Ideas and Implementation' and the recognition of the achievements of the staff make me particularly happy," says In-Albon. "We are on the right track. But there is still a lot of work waiting for the team in the future".

Continuous development
According to In-Albon, continuous development is crucial, especially in view of the current challenges facing the industry. The destination strategy plays an important role and the next step is the launch of the family brand Saaniland. This project bundles the destination's family offers. The young, cheeky goat Saani accompanies children on their experiences in the destination, for example on the playgrounds in the Gstaad mountains or in the Station in the former fire station in Saanen.

No Disneyland
"The past has shown: People want to be entertained more and more, and Austria in particular is showing the way", says In-Albon. "But we do not want any Disneyland productions on our mountains." Therefore, the production of the two family mountains was based on a lot of wood and focused on those animals that have had a connection to these mountains for years: the Saanengeiss on the Wispile and the cattle on the Rinderberg. 

"A great joy"
For ideas and their implementation Isabella Eder is strong in the lead and she was rewarded with her personal Gold Award. "It is crazy, a great thing, it makes me very happy", was her first reaction to the question what the award means to her. But she remains modest: "You don't do something like this on your own, there's a whole team behind it."

Anonymous testers were on site during the whole summer. "We had to hand in 40 tickets. We didn't know when they were coming, where they were going, what they were doing," explains the gold winner.

Based on AvS/Anita Moser

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