I have had the pleasure of being invited to make a presentation to the OECD’s Tourism Seminar February 26 – 27, in Bregenz, Austria. The seminar, entitled ” A New Design for Tourism: Culture, Tourism and Creative Industries. Driving Forces for Local Development” has been a mixture of innovative field trips, seminars, presentations, and local experiences.
This is my first time travelling in Europe. As a result, I see things with very “innocent” and “first time” eyes. I am open to everything.
The seminar has taken place at the Festival House. at the east end of Lake Constance, in the small capital town of Bregenz in Vorarlberg, the western-most province of Austria. The virtual tour gives you a really great perspective of the location and gives a really good, state of the art approach to using virtual tours that really help you to see a facility from a new perspective.
The town has created one of the most amazing open-air stage concepts I have ever seen. An open air floating opera stage with associated seating sits on the water, along the waterfront of Bregenz. As an infrastructure approach to staged experiences, it offers several unique things through its Bregenzer Festspeile (Bregenz Festival) with a spectacular view 70 km west down Lake Constance.
- An inspiring natural setting looking down the 70km length of Lake Constance.
- A small town setting for a world class conference centre and open air, opera stage.
- An entertainment concept that does not appear to be commoditized, because the opera and the set changes from year to year. 2009 will present Aida.
- High attention to detail in the operation of the conference centre, the movement of people, and the opera stage. (spectacular setting, stage, natural view, and on a grand scale)
- Competitive positioning that offers: nothing like this in the rest of Europe; a focus on Vorarlberg’s reputation as a centre for architectural design and innovation in Austria.
You can learn more about this amazing experience in this video:
or visiting the Bregenz website.
