The Planai railways are currently swimming on a wave of success: record season, World Championship approval and the seventh award within one year only. Last Tuesday (3 June 2008) the Planai railways received the award in gold of the worldwide hardest competition for tourism marketing. The Planai TV spot „Vorfreude“ (German for anticipation) won before global players such as TUI or ÖBB.
This competition, brought to life by the TAI (Tourism Industry Austria & International) some 23 years ago, is known as the hardest competition worldwide, since the 263 submitted works were evaluated by a professional jury and a public jury, 5,000 votes altogether. The Planai could win over both the professional jury, resulting in the gold medal „Signum laudis“ and also the public jury with a majority, resulting in another „Signum laudis in gold“ award. Eventually, this translated into the 1st place of the competition as a whole. The main award, a crystal sculpture designed by Mag. Silvia Rehrl from Vienna and manufactured by Swarovski.
This highest award is added to other awards won during the past year: Gold for „Fit im Job“ (Fit on the job), “Antenne Award” for the radio campaign, the “Tourismus-Innovationspreis” (Tourism Innovation Award) of the federal state Styria (Ice palace), Green Panther 2007, International Ski Run Quality Seal, ÖKO Award during the Alpine Conference in Alpbach and the Marketing Innovation Award.
Managing Director KoR Dir. Albert Baier says: „It is not our priority to win awards, but to offer the best product on the market to our customers. If this goal is also honoured with awards, that is even nicer for us. In terms of marketing we often compete against big international companies. We do not have to hide in comparison and are well positioned in the market“.
The Planai TV spot running both on TV and in the cinemas has been produced by the local creative, Gernot Langs and convinced above all with its humorous content. The spot can be viewed under www.planai.at.

The Planai railways do not employ big advertising agencies but instead do most of the activities in form of a „one stop shop“ internally in the marketing department. Partners are consulted for individual projects.
It should be mentioned that the newly established marketing company Schladming-Dachstein has also received an award in the scope of this competition: the first place of the public jury in the Internet category.

Since 2006, the Planai railways have had the health project „Gesundes Planai“ (Healthy Planai). In order to promote health amongst the employees different programs, courses and lectures are on offer. Now the efforts of the enterprise were awarded the 1st place at the Styrian Health Award – Fit on the job“.
More than 60 enterprises applied for the award in four different categories (according to number of employees). In category 3 (51-250 employees), the Planai railways unexpectedly won the 1st place, ex aequo with KWB from Eastern Styria.
The offerings of the „Healthy Planai“ concept include training how to lift heavy weights, back training, Yoga, lectures about avalanches, dancing lessons, wine seminars, ski gymnastics and cooking courses for men as well as climbing, biking, running and medical fitness tests. The program is open to all employees of the enterprise (including seasonal workers), and their partners and pensioners of the enterprise. Heidi Oberlojer is very active und engages in project management in order to prepare an extraordinary program for her co-workers. The sports physician Dr. Georg Fritsch has been involved into the health project from the very beginning. Managing Director Komm.-Rat Dir. Albert Baier supports the “Healthy Planai” concept as well and is pleased about the award by the chambers of industry. 

Apart from the Planai Hochwurzen Railway as the only Austrian participant, participants from the ski areas of Adelboden (Switzerland), Malbun (Liechtenstein) and Oberstdorf (Germany) were awarded for their participation in eco-audit.
The eco-audit is a comprehensive environmental assessment. Planai Railway was the first ski area to position itself as a “green cable car operation”, and already voluntarily participated in this “ecological ski area auditing” in 2002. In the context of this audit, all corporate divisions are assessed for their environmental compatibility. This can range from plant variety along the ski pistes to the breeding behaviour of birds and the reforestation of the entire area. The eco-audit issues the Planai Railways an outstanding, exemplary certification in all environmental aspects.  
Owing to the support of the four ski area, the trust of “Pro Natura” enabled the compilation of a manual for the ecological assessment and revaluation of ski areas. 

For the certification, every operation has to fulfil a 100 point criteria catalogue that is based on high quality offers from the mountain. Every mountain is assigned to a special experience repertoire group, which concentrates on different guest groups. This can range from regional culinary delights to special theme hikes or health checks on the mountain to alpine children’s adventure worlds or combination tickets for mountain and lake experiences.

The Dachstein glacier railway could fulfil all the necessary criteria and was thus awarded the Austria Summer Rail Award. This award is presented every 3 years (2006-2008).

The Planai Railways was awarded for its efforts in 5 criteria such as “working hours”, “advanced training”, “maternity leave and return”, “family-friendly measures”, “health and other measures” were decided by an expert jury, who evaluated the individual criteria. 

For the Planai Railways, this is a high distinction and the evidence that the permanent efforts and investments paid off. A practiced mission statement, ongoing corporate design (from the prints to the orientation system), creation and use of modern communication channels such as the internet (up to 2,3 million page views per month on www.planai.at) as well as high investments in further training for employees, who will as of this year, attend the Planai Academy, are the foundation for the service philosophy of the company. In the past winter, nearly 300 employees from the Planai Railway region were employed.