Salzburg Global Seminar – Hotel Schloss Leopoldskron
Of Archbishops, Current and Future Leaders, and Making the World a Better Place
On 10 June 2021 the students of the elective modules ‘Off to Uni: Survival Cooking for Students’ and ‘English and Hospitality: Get Ready for Your Summer Job in Tourism’ and their teachers went on their first physical on-site excursion this school year and visited Schloss Leopoldskron. They were welcomed by Thomas Biebl, vice president for public affairs at Salzburg Global Seminar and Daniel Szelényi, vice president of hospitality, for short keynote presentations and an extensive Q&A session in the recently refurbished meeting room. In the ensuing guided tour of the Schloss itself, both hosts invited and encouraged students and teachers alike to “photograph, touch and post everything they wanted to.”
In their keynote speeches, Daniel Szelényi and Thomas Biebl introduced themselves, the institution Salzburg Global Seminar, and Hotel Schloss Leopoldskron. As vice president for hospitality Mr Szelényi manages the daily hotel operations. His least and at the same time most favourite part of his job is dealing with complaints. Even though he does not like the fact that hotel guests have complaints and are unhappy with something, he likes it all the more to put a smile back on their faces. Mr Biebl is responsible for communications, branding, global outreach, and new ventures. When he was still a student, he got himself the opportunity to be a part of one of the meetings of Salzburg Global Seminar, an institution founded after World War II to build a space for communication between different kinds of people, all with their different opinions, who “want to make the world a better place.” Ever since, as a fellow and in his professional capacity, Mr Biebl has found every single person he has met in the course of these meetings inspirational.
After the Q&A session, Mr Szelényi and Mr Biebl showed the AkadGym students and their teachers around the Schloss, telling them historical background information as well as interesting and funny details and anecdotes. They thus learned, for instance, that Max Reinhardt, who bought the building in 1918, had a secret staircase built leading from the library to his bedroom, as he did not want to meet his guests when going to sleep. Originally, the Schloss was built by Prince Archbishop Firmian as a summer residence during the eighteenth century, and his heart still lies buried below the Chapel in the Schloss up to the present day. “Informative, interesting, and intriguing!” replied Leo Klein of class 6e when asked to summarise their visit at Schloss Leopoldskron.
Antonio Waach, 6a, & Gunda Kolator, 6e
Fotos: Christian Lutsch
