4000th Sunkid Moving Carpet in the Hochzillertal Kaltenbach skiing center

The Hochzillertal Kaltenbach skiing center has gained another highlight. 6 February 2024 saw the festive handover of the 4000th Sunkid Moving Carpet delivered worldwide. Millions of skiing beginners have benefitted from the “Moving Carpets” since they were invented as a modern skiing conveyor belt back in 1996. Sunkid GmbH, headquartered in Imst, is deemed the driving innovator and trendsetter in year-round tourism for children and families with its entire product range.

The “Moving Carpet” not only revolutionized ski school lessons. It has become a staple as a beginners’, feeder, and connecting lift as well as in many other capacities in skiing  areas and leisure destinations around the world. Sunkid, an internationally active group of companies – headquartered in Imst, Tyrol – offers a broad product range for tourism regions, theme parks, and experience worlds, allowing Sunkid GmbH to live up to its vision of being “the first point of contact for leisure time attractions for children and families around the world”.

Sunkid’s two managing directors, Emanuel Wohlfarter (CEO) and Herbert Zopf (CTO), were in a celebratory mood at handover of the new system to managing director Maximilian Schultz and heads of operations Daniel Steinlechner and Christian Knapp. “The new Moving Carpet has enabled us to further increase value in the children’s and beginners’ areas near the mountain station and raising them onto a new level. The system was integrated well into the present terrain and the slope and now directly connects to the mountain station exit of our feeder train on one level,” Maximilian Schulz rejoices. “The first few months of the main season and the Christmas weeks have already shown that this was the right step towards improving our overall offering and increasing quality, most of all for beginners and newcomers,” the managing director shares some first results.

At a length of 142 meters, the conveyor belt in the Hochzillertal Kaltenbach skiing center was implemented with the latest Type N generation technology. It offers roofed-over entry and exit areas with five emergency exits in the form of easy-to-open self-rolling tarpaulins and sports a custom design. The cameras installed on the gallery arches provide a great overview for the lift personnel, who are able to check on the facility this way. The new conveyor belt generation also sets standards in terms of maintenance and operation. The drive output of 22 kW enables a conveyor throughput of up to 1,650 persons per hour. 

Schultz group, operating four skiing resorts in Fügen, Kals-Matrei, Sillian, and St. Jakob in East Tyrol in addition to the Hochzillertal skiing center, provides impulses and inspiration for passion on the mountain. A unique architecture that harmoniously integrates into nature and innovation made tangible are the family-owned company’s mission. All this passion for sports is harmonized to the greatest degree possible with respect for the landscape in the projects tackled.

Development of summer attractions is increasingly growing in importance for mountain railways in tourism regions. Sunkid’s Moving Carpet is far from being an ordinary conveyor belt. “28 years ago, we developed our Moving Carpet as a climbing aid for ski schools,” Emanuel Wohlfarter reminisces. “Since then, it has become a year-round transport solution for people, goods, boats, and tubes that is virtually unbeatable in terms of diversity of use.”  In addition to the bike parks that are being built in many locations now, more and more leisure offerings that allow Sunkid to score with its broad product range are implemented as well. This may include entire summer experience worlds with playing stations, family rides in theme parks, tubing slopes, or special Sunkid conveyor belts for rafts in water parks or for kayaks in artificial whitewater channels.

Sunkid is able to serve all of these areas with its wide product range. Large or long conveyor belt facilities are particularly trendy here. The systems are also delivered with gallery options, e.g., in wood constructions or with photovoltaics roofs, protecting passengers from wind and weather and further increasing operational safety. Photovoltaics roofs produce all power the system needs, as well as some excess that can be fed into the public mains.

This year will see some new standards beings et as well, as two double conveyor belt systems will be put into operation in Spain’s Sierra Nevada. Armenia is added as a new target market with 3 facilities as well.

About Sunkid: Sunkid comprises 8 companies with about 130 employees. It produces in 3 sites in Austria and Germany. Together with more than 45 sales and service partners, it has implemented more than 9,000 projects to date – including 4,000 Moving Carpet conveyor belts – for customers in more than 75 countries around the world.