Ladin culture under threat from Olympic boom

Too much tourism harms minorities. How can they ensure that they remain visible at major sporting and cultural events?

The Olympics are omnipresent in Cortina d'Ampezzo (Ladin: Anpezo): flags and advertisements relating to the 2026 Winter Games are everywhere, and on a terrace not far from the centre, there are life-size Olympic rings in front of which tourists from all over the world pose, with the breathtaking mountain world of the Tofane in the background, on whose slopes the women will compete for medals in the alpine skiing competitions in February. Those standing at the edge of the slopes or watching the races on TV will be informed about what is happening in all kinds of languages – but not in Ladin, even though Ampezzo is located in Ladinia. How is this possible?

‘There is no sign of Ladin; the Ladin associations have not even been approached, and that less than a year before the start of the Games!’ says Sofia Stuflesser. She is the president of the Union di Ladins de Gherdëina, the Ladin association in Val Gardena, one of the five valleys around the Sella massif in the Dolomites, where around 35,000 people still speak the ancient language that originated from Vulgar Latin.

‘Ladin is hardly visible at major events, apart from perhaps an occasional welcome greeting,’ Stuflesser said during a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the Working Group on Non-kin-state Minorities of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN), which was held some time ago in Al Plan/St. Vigil in the Gadertal valley.

‘Our culture mostly serves as folklore, the language remains outside; it is hardly mentioned, if at all,’ Stuflesser continues. Everything is conducted in the official language, Italian. The topic of the panel discussion was the impact of tourism on minority languages and how minorities can be made visible at major sporting and cultural events. All too often, they are not visible.

Ladin was not featured at the Alpine Ski World Championships, which were also held in Cortina d'Ampezzo in 2021, and the same fate befell Franco-Provençal at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. The Ladins therefore do not have high hopes, especially as the organiser of the Games, the Milano Cortina 2026 Foundation, is not known for its transparency and willingness to cooperate.

‘The locals don't benefit from the Games,’ says Elsa Zardini resignedly. ‘If someone from Ampezzo wants to extend their house by a few square metres, they have to go through endless formalities. With the Olympics, everything goes smoothly, even huge construction projects are waved through,’ says the president of the Ladin association Union de i Ladis d'Anpezo. ‘The Olympic Games are no longer an event for athletes, but an event for speculators, for those who just want to make money, for politicians, and no longer for the local people. That's my opinion, but it's also the opinion of many people in Cortina,’ says Zardini.

The Ladins are no longer masters in their own house, because the 1956 Winter Olympics, which made Ampezzo famous throughout the world, led to a mass influx of wealthy people from Venice and Milan who wanted to have a second home in the enchanting Ampezzo mountain landscape. The result to this day is that the locals are being displaced; young people are forced to move to neighbouring areas, thereby losing their community and, in the long term, their language. In Cortina d'Ampezzo, perhaps only a quarter of the inhabitants are Ladins today, and their numbers are dwindling.

Data on the impact of tourism on the Ladins and their language has been collected by Paul Videsott, scientific director of the South Tyrolean Institute for Ethnic Groups and professor at the Ladin Department of the Faculty of Education at the Free University of Bozen/Bolzano in Brixen/Bressanone. Between 1991 and 2021, the number of tourist overnight stays rose everywhere in the Ladin valleys, mostly at double-digit rates, but the proportion of Ladin speakers declined everywhere in the Ladin communities during the same period, from moderate figures of around two percent to as much as 35 percent. In 2018, second homes accounted for over 60 per cent of all dwellings in Cortina d'Ampezzo/Anpezo. The other Ladin valleys also have sought-after holiday destinations where second homes account for over a quarter of all dwellings or have even exceeded the number of primary residences.

But where there is high demand, prices rise: the average price per square metre for new housing is up to 12,500 euros in Ampezzo and up to 12,000 euros in Sëlva/Wolkenstein in Gröden. This is many times higher than the average prices in other municipalities in the provinces of South Tyrol, Trentino and Belluno. Videsotto's conclusion: tourism can benefit minorities, but too much tourism harms them. In addition, very little use is made of the minority language in Ladinia, whether in advertising – even in its own tourism advertising – or on institutional platforms such as the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Dolomites.

The phenomenon is widespread. ‘In Brittany, up to 80 per cent of homes are second homes in some areas,’ said Breton Louis Albert-Becker at the FUEN event in Val Badia; ‘people are selling their houses on the Mediterranean and moving north because it's getting too hot in the south.’ As a result, the Breton language has lost half of its speakers in the last six years, funding is being cut, media outlets are closing and schools are in danger of being abandoned.

The problem is now being addressed by the Council of Europe. The fifth state report on Great Britain under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities states: ‘In Cornwall, Wales and Scotland, the displacement of local people from tourist hotspots through the purchase of second homes or holiday homes is worrying and threatens the vitality of local language communities.’ Second home ownership removes properties from the long-term rental market, which are instead used for holiday rentals. According to this report, the number of locals in Cornwall who have had to seek emergency accommodation has risen by 50 per cent in recent years.

So what can be done to give minorities visibility at major events and counteract migration? ‘You have to arouse curiosity, stage stories, but you mustn't pander,’ says Chasper Pult. The Graubünden linguist firmly believes that holidaymakers are definitely interested in minorities and their languages. In Graubünden, Romansh has become established in recent decades and is becoming increasingly visible in public spaces. ‘Rumantsch Grischun is now systemically relevant,’ says Pult.

Andreas Gabriel, Deputy Secretary General of Lia Rumantscha, the umbrella organisation for Romansh language associations in Graubünden, describes how the Romansh language can be used specifically at major events, using the example of the 2017 Alpine Ski World Championships in San Murezzan/St. Moritz: There were multilingual signs everywhere, multilingual presentations, cultural events and a presence on social media; promotional items were distributed with an illustration of an athlete engaged in Romanic activities; athletes and journalists were provided with information and glossaries including Romanic place names, and volunteers were trained accordingly. The official app contained a Romansh dictionary. All this was done under the motto ‘Piglia't il temp – Take time for Romansh’.

However, Romansh is one of the four official languages of Switzerland. Ladin speakers in Cortina d'Ampezzo can only dream of this: Ladin will not be included in the 2026 Olympics.

Chasper Pult warns: ‘A language disappears secretly if it is not visible.’ Sofia Stuflesser is determined not to let that happen and is making demands: "Our visibility is not a luxury, but an expression of respect that should be a matter of course in the Europe of regions. We demand sustainable solutions that have a positive impact on the local population and continue to benefit language and culture.

This requires the involvement and participation of the local population, starting with the bid for major events.

Perhaps the 2031 World Ski Championships, which will take place in Val Gardena and thus once again in Ladin, will succeed in giving Ladin a stronger presence? There is little hope for the 2026 Olympics. What will remain of Anpezo after the Olympics? ‘That's hard to say,’ says Elsa Zardini. The infrastructure in her municipality, which has always suffered from major traffic problems, was not improved before the Games. Zardini fears that her home town will be left with nothing but costs, especially since a new bobsleigh track was built at a cost of 120 million euros specifically for these Games under intense pressure from politicians and organisers. The old track from the 1956 Games had to be closed in 2008 because the municipality could not afford the renovation costs. The proposal to hold the bobsleigh and luge competitions in Innsbruck instead of building a new track in Cortina d'Ampezzo, which was supported by many, was rejected.

‘Maintaining the track after the Games will probably be the responsibility of the municipality, and we hope that we will not suffer the same fate as Cesana,’ says Zardini. The bobsleigh track in Piedmont, built especially for the 2006 Games in Turin, was never used again after the Games, was decommissioned in 2011 and has been rotting away ever since.