Bürgenstock Resort cancelled 1,200 bookings for US-Iran talks

Bürgenstock Resort had to cancel 1,200 bookings Keystone-SDA

The Bürgenstock Resort on Lake Lucerne had to arrange the talks between representatives of the US, Iran, Qatar and Pakistan in less than 48 hours. To make room for representatives, the resort had to cancel over a thousand reservations.

By the time the talks began, security arrangements, meeting rooms, the media centre, hotel rooms and catering would have had to be organised. “There are a thousand details you have to think about, right down to the ‘flags’ on the negotiating table,” said resort director Chris Franzen in an interview with CH-Media published on Wednesday. For the Ukraine summit two years ago, there had been several months to prepare.

Because of the conference, 1,200 bookings involving a total of more than 2,000 guests had to be cancelled. “As the host, that naturally hit me particularly hard,” said Franzen. It had been particularly difficult to contact travellers who were already on their way to Switzerland. A specialist team of around 20 people worked round the clock for three days to organise rebookings. The resort covered the costs of this.

According to him, the hotel’s approximately 380 rooms were fully occupied during the talks. They were evenly distributed amongst the delegations from the US, Iran, Qatar and Pakistan. The resort therefore did not suffer any loss of revenue. The Bürgenstock was not involved in the costs of the security arrangements.

Franzen described hosting the peace conference as good news for the region and for Switzerland. The resort was pleased to play its part in this.

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Translated from German, sub-edited by jdp