LIVIGNO, Italy — Local merchants might anticipate big dollars when events such as an Olympics or Super Bowl come to their town, but that’s not how it typically works out.
Livigno, for instance, is a ski town with two thriving resorts in the Alps near the Swiss border. How could hosting the Milano Cortina Olympics do anything but attract more visitors and more money?
But large-scale investment in the Winter Games and a surge of fans hasn’t benefited the local business economy so much in the moment, as they flock to the competition venues and some regular visitors have put off their trips here until next year.
The Games are overlapping with winter break for many European schools and Livigno’s peak snowfall season, when ski vacationers typically fill the town.
This “is a quiet moment because many people are not coming to Livigno,” said Luca Bormelene, co-owner of Sport4U ski rentals with his wife, Irene. That is, the ski slopes during these Games are nearly empty.
Bormelene, like many residents, hopes visitors who came for the Games will return in future years after getting a taste of the small town. And that likely is the case, as Park City residents have observed in the years following the 2002 Winter Games.
“I’m here with my son, and my partner and daughter are at home, and I just wish they were here,” said Katie Barnett of Sydney, Australia, who came for the Games. “I’m planning to bring them back.”
James Bolson visits Livigno from Czechia every year around this time. His family loves skiing during their kids’ school break and are going to some competitions to support their compatriots this year.
“We’re having a lovely time here,” Bolson said. “There’s definitely a lot of people here for the Olympics. I’ve never seen the slopes so empty.”
Camilla Talacci, who owns and operates Gioelleria Talacci jewelry store and the Appartamenti Talacci hotel with her family, is feeling Bormelene’s pain. While she was able to rent out her hotel with ease to the Italian and Swedish Olympic teams, foot traffic is down in her store.
Gioelleria Talacci is on Via Plan, a street in Livigno tucked behind the town’s main road that features walkable shops and restaurants. Talacci said the tourists here for the Games are rushing off to competitions and not spending time in her store and shopping like ski visitors do.
“February is normally high season,” Talacci said. “I don’t know if I can say this or if I’m going to scare you for your opportunities in Utah, but in the shops we have a very, very big black hole.”
While Talacci’s hotel is completely booked, she didn’t love having to turn away regulars, however much she enjoys hosting the Swedish and Italian Olympian contigents.
“This is a village where you live all year round,” Talacci said. “It is a living village. It’s not that when it’s low season, everything is closed. … I think Livigno have been very good about creating tourism almost 12 months a year.”
Livigno’s press office and public relations head, Tommaso Barbarisi, said the town was tiny and poor just over 50 years ago, before the ski industry took root. He said he believes the town is largely over the moon to have the Games and that the infusion of funding around the Olympics will help propel Livigno into the future.
“The Olympics are not the finish line,” Barbarisi said. “A starting point for the next 10 years to grow even more.”
Barbarisi said Livigno wants tourists “of higher quality” from new markets like the United States, Canada and Australia. Funding the Games and more tourism revenue will help with projects like a gondola connecting the two ski resorts, underground parking lots and improvements to local hospitals, he said. Barbarisi said the Games are helping fast track such improvements in the coming year or so, which would have otherwise taken 15-20 years to implement.
Like Park City and other American ski towns, Livigno bolsters summer tourism through outdoor recreational activities like biking, running and swimming. They see a lot of elite athletes come to town to train because of altitude benefits, too.
“I would say that 95% of the population is happy,” Barbarisi said about the Games being in town. “There’s always that 5%, or maybe less, that don’t want the Olympics. It’s totally normal. I think that some people always want to complain. But yes, people are happy.”
Credit: David Jackson/Park Record