IMPORTANT:

The special pass for SAC 2010 attendees for transport between Crans-Montana and Sierre must be purchased ON-LINE before coming to SAC 2010 at http://ch.amiando.com/HLEINXC. Additional buses are being scheduled to transport SAC attendees between Sierre (conference venue at HES-SO) and Crans-Montana hotels. Please see details and bus schedules below.

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To facilitate your travel, the local organizing committee will provide valuable information about hotels, travel info, local excursions, transportation info, food services, and other information. As you plan your travel, please check the information provided on this page. Please note that the local committee is making every effort to facilitate your travel arrangements.

Visa Information

The Association for Computing Machinery does not issue formal invitation letters for visas to attend ACM sponsored conferences. We can however issue a visa support letter. For Visa support letters, please send all requests to the Office of SIG Services at supportletters@acm.org with the following information:

Location: Sierre (Conference venue) and Crans-Montana (Hotels and ski resort)

The conference will be held on the campus of the University of Applied Sciences, Western Switzerland (HES-SO) in Sierre, Switzerland. Designated hotels are situated in the neighboring Crans-Montana ski resort. The ski resort is nearby the town of Sierre. Local transportation between the hotels and the conference venue are available with a direct funicular and busses. Please see local transportation section below.

This is a map of Sierre with the conference venue, the train and bus station, and the funicular Departure.

Room Reservation:

The pre-reserved room blocks for SAC attendees has been released to the public. At this time, attendees seeking to make room reservations must directly contact the hotels. There are many hotels in Crans-Montana and Sierre areas. Some of the hotels are:

• Hôtel Etrier (www.hoteletrier.ch)
  
• Hôtel Aïda (www.aida-castel.ch)
  
• Hôtel Du Parc (www.parc-hotel.ch)
  
• Helvetia Intergolf (www.helvetia-intergolf.ch)
  
• Hôtel Eldorado (www.hoteleldorado.ch)
  
• Hôtel Mont Paisible (www.hotel-montpaisible.ch)

Furthermore, Crans-Montana has a lot of apartments that are suited for small groups or families. You can book them at http://www.tourism-crans-montana.co.uk/. If you choose to do so, please make sure you are within the area called Montana, which not too far away from the Funicular departure station to go down to Sierre.

Flying In:

Airport and Train:

• Best option is fly to Geneva Airport:
  • train station within airport
  • + 2h16 train direct to Sierre, every 30 minutes.
  • 2nd class ticket Geneva Airport -> Sierre: 53.- CHF (1 CHF is approximately US$1, and approximately EU 0.66)
  • 1st class ticket Geneva Airport -> Sierre: 88.- CHF
• Second option is to fly to Zurich Airport:
  • train station within airport
  • + 2h45 train to Sierre with one change in Visp, every one hour. Take the train direction "Brig", and change in "Visp" (2h22). Then take the train direction "Geneva" until Sierre (18min).
  • 2nd class ticket Zurich Airport -> Sierre: 90.- CHF
  • 1st class ticket Zurich Airport -> Sierre: 149.- CHF
• Third option is to fly to Milano Airport, Italy:
  • transfer from Milano airport to Milano central station is needed (and more complicated)
  • + 2h40 train direct to Sierre, few trains per day

Booking train tickets: you can book train tickets directly online at http://www.sbb.ch/en/

When you are in Sierre, you need to go to Crans-Montana to your hotels. For that, you can either take a bus, the funicular or a taxi. See the details in the following section.

Arrivals in Sierre & Local Transportation between Sierre and Crans-Montana

When you arrive in Sierre:

• Use the local transportation with company SMC (RED buses + Funicular). You have the choice between:
  1. If your hotel is in Montana: take Red Bus to Crans-Montana through Mollens (see Timetable) or the Funicular  (see Timetable).
  2. If you hotel is in Crans, take Red Bus to Crans-Montana through Chermignon  (see Timetable).
• In any case, SHOW to the (red) bus driver the HOTEL name in which you are staying, and he will tell you which bus to take.
• If you want to use a taxi from Sierre, call +41 900 39 60 00 (CHF 0.60/min. Within Switzerland call 0900 39 60 00). A drive from Sierre to Crans-Montana costs around 70 CHF.

Late arrivals in Sierre:

The last public transports from Sierre to Crans-Montana are the following:

Please use your special pass, or buy the tickets directly at the bus or the funicular.

When you arrive in Crans-Montana (from Sierre):

• All buses within Crans-Montana are free. However, the service stops around 6pm.
• If you take the funicular, taxis are available at the end of the funicular.
• You can also contact your hotel to organize local transportation within Crans-Montana.

Please visit www.cie-smc.ch for useful information on schedule and prices (only in French, though). Please ask the tourist office for more specific information in English. Here is a plan of the funicular and buses (Gare CFF means the train station in Sierre).

Special pass for transport between Crans-Montana and Sierre

Before coming to SAC 2010, you should buy your weekly transportation pass between Sierre (conference venue at HES-SO) and Crans-Montana (hotels) on http://ch.amiando.com/HLEINXC. Please note that this pass is a SPECIAL OFFER. It MUST be bought online. The registration desk and the local transportation company will NOT deliver this pass onsite.

This pass will give you access to additional special buses (see below) AND the regular buses and funicular lines, from Sunday 21st to Sunday 28th. Please keep the ticket receipt and show it to the bus drivers.

Extra special buses for SAC2010: Click on this image to see the bus schedule.

From Tuesday to Friday, there will be 6 additional special buses from Crans-Montana to Sierre and back (2 of them will bring you to the funicular). Please read carefully the bus schedule to know which bus to take. As the capacity of the funicular is limited to 100, it is important (and more convenient anyway) to take the bus that corresponds to your hotel or that brings you to the funicular, following the plan for the additional buses.

Local Excursions

CRANS-MONTANA is one of Switzerland's big, world-famous ski resorts, occupying at 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) what is claimed to be the sunniest plateau in the Alps, facing south over the Rhône valley with a spectacular panorama of peaks yawning beyond. Situated in the middle of canton Valais (also called the Matterhorn country), it offers 160kms (100 miles) of varied and challenging skiing, with the highest point situated on the glacier, La Plaine Morte” at more that 3,000 meters (10,000 feet). It is an excellent resort with many facilities for people of all ages and interests. Originally two villages, Crans and Montana are now linked and the free bus service offers easy access to the numerous shops, sporting facilities and slopes. Five gondola links from different parts of the resort are the starting point for the well connected ski area, which is regularly host to world cup events. Skiing aside, the place is best known for hosting the European Masters golf tournament every September, second only to the British Open for prestige and top names.

On http://www.tourism-crans-montana.co.uk/, you will find all information for local excursions in the resort. Crans-Montana itself offers many activities:

1. 160kms (100 miles) of varied and challenging skiing;
2. glacier La Plaine Morte; at more that 3,000 meters (10,000 feet);
3. lessons of ski, snowboard, carving, snowbike, telemark and nordic-ski, ski-hiking or ski touring, downhill with light torch, ski off pist;
4. nightly snowshoe walk & fondue;
5. torchlit descent & fondue;
6. sledge pist;
7. hiking trails.