Switzerland: Concrete Plans for New Heidi Experience
The Swiss village of Tannenboden on Flumserberg mountain will be home to the new Heidi Alperlebnis experience, a theme world featuring the popular little girl from the Swiss children’s book. Furthermore, the plans include a resort with an adjacent parking space, the renewal of the mountain cable car section “Tannenboden – Maschgenkamm” and the opening of a visitor center.
Surrounded by the Alps panorama, guests will be able to immerse into Heidi’s world, which was created by Swiss author Johanna Spyri, and take part in activities such as milking goats or crafting a wooden stool. Also, visitors will meet “locals” in a recreation of the 19th century Swiss alpine village. A similar project to the new Heidi experience was already announced in 2008 (c.f. EAP news from May 29th, 2008), with an opening scheduled for July 2009. Due to open financing issues the project was not completed at that time – now, project developer Steiner Sarnen Schweiz provides the utilization concept for the new Heidi Alperlebnis. The company Implenia Schweiz AG is responsible for the development of the resort and hotel.
In addition, the mountain cable car will see a complete modernization: the station in Tannenboden will be re-built, a more efficient cable car from Bartholet Seilbahnen will substitute the existing cable car with gondolas for four persons (and also the chairlift to Chruez). Around a hundred million Swiss Francs (around 93 million Euros) are being invested in this comprehensive project to boost tourism in the Flumserberg region also in the summer seasons. The canton of St. Gallen expects to welcome around 200,000 annual visitors in addition as soon as the park will be open in 2020. (eap)
