Infront Sports & Media, Official Media and Marketing Partner of the World Curling Federation (WCF) has secured a joint title sponsorship agreement for the 2009 World Women’s Curling Championship, with Titlis Rotair Cableways and Lucerne Tourism sharing the title package. With this agreement, Infront demonstrates the potential of its new partnership with the WCF.
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.”
