Behind the scenes: Summit on Peace in Ukraine at Bürgenstock Resort

Few global conferences in recent years have matched the profile or significance of the 2024 Summit on Peace in Ukraine, held over the weekend of June 15-16. So when Switzerland offered to host it, a venue was required that could meet the event’s demands. 

Several prestigious competitors, including various Geneva hotels, were considered before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs chose Bürgenstock Resort Lake Lucerne. With its five-star hospitality, secure environment, and proximity to airports, it proved ideal. The setting clearly impressed even those accustomed to high-level summits: Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky himself remarked, “this venue will bring success.” 

Set on a ridge above Lake Lucerne, the Bürgenstock Resort opened in 1873 and is one of Europe’s largest resorts and has 12 historic spaces (including the church where Audrey Hepburn got married in the 1950s, and the site of a villa where Sophia Loren lived for 13 years), hotels, spas, residences, and restaurants. The five-star Bürgenstock Hotel & Alpine Spa alone features 31 meeting rooms, a conference centre and a ballroom – used for both private or business events. 

Finding a venue is one thing; hosting an event of this size and importance is another matter entirely. While “perfectly organised” is how the event’s host, Swiss president Viola Amherd, later described it, as we know, below the surface of the water, a flurry of activity is taking place to ensure such grace and elegance up top. 

While the team behind the summit had extensive experience hosting conferences, this event presented two unique challenges: a short lead time of just a few months – and the need to pack the entire event into two intense days of diplomacy. 

“Usually, for an event like this, you’d have at least a year,” says Chris K Franzen, the resort’s managing director. “But these are the diaries of global leaders, and of course, there are political events. So, they had to do it just after the G7 Summit in June.” 

More challenging, perhaps, than the logistics of world leaders? The resort also needed to host 500 journalists - a profession renowned for being hard to please. 

Team effort 

Pre-event planning was crucial, given the tight security and global media attention. “You can’t wait until the last minute – you have to make sure everything is ready,” says Franzen. “We had to plan everything, from linens to turn-down services, because the organisers and security detail didn’t want trucks going up and down the mountain.”  

By the time the conference began, 1,150 staff members – including 700 permanent and 350 agency employees – were assembled on-site. Each staff member passed vetting checks and multiple security checkpoints before entering the resort. This dedicated team worked 19,800 hours, managing hundreds of hotel rooms and overseeing the movement of delegations and VIPs. 

Even before the summit, the Bürgenstock Resort was in the media spotlight. More than 1500 media clippings from around the world referenced the resort in the two weeks leading up to the key weekend, with Franzen himself making time for more than 50 individual interviews.  

By the time the event began across two days of meetings and a gala reception and dinner, 57 heads of state, including Zelensky, German chancellor Olaf Scholz, and US vice-president Kamala Harris, convened at the Bürgenstock Resort. The high-end tennis centre was transformed into the plenary conference hall, and numerous meetings took place in the historic property’s corridors and rooms. 

The stature of the attendees required the resort to coordinate closely with domestic and global agencies, including Swiss ministries, security services, the US Secret Service, and the Ukrainian president’s security detail. It also meant constructing two anti-aircraft facilities and six secure helicopter landing spots. 

Franzen was also obliged to swiftly contact and reschedule existing guests, inviting them to return at another time – and even relocate some long-term residents. The real challenge was the constant movement of people: delegations arrived and departed continuously, while staff were ferried in around the clock from local villages, passing through multiple security checkpoints. Franzen estimates he shook hands with over 300 people in the lobby during the event. 

“Many of the leaders came for only a day or less,” he says. “I’ve hosted heads of state before, but never that many, in and out, in one single day or over 48 hours.” Seamless communication and collaboration with various security agencies ensured the resort operated smoothly – better than an international airport, in fact. 

Swiss hospitality  

The scale of the event also placed significant focus on the resort’s kitchen. A team of 160 chefs prepared 6,000 meals over the two days, with attendees and security staff consuming 2,100 croissants and Danish pastries, and over 340kg of coffee. With all eyes on the gala dinner, the culinary team delivered a menu rich in Swiss character and produce: the cold starter of Swiss chard, served with horseradish, green asparagus, and pea shoots, was prepared in advance, freeing up the kitchen to focus on the main course – veal cheeks in puff pastry, with Swiss mushrooms and broccoli. 

While leaders were enjoying their gala dinner, hungry hacks were feasting elsewhere, with some dining at the other on-site restaurants and others the recipients of the thousands of sandwiches and salad bowls served up over the two-day summit.  

With journalists fed and watered - and with working wifi, not always a guarantee at global summits as many long-in-the-tooth scribblers will attest - they could focus on the job at hand. Coverage of the summit right across the world had one thing in common: stunning photography of the resort itself, blessed with good weather, and the beautiful Swiss surrounds of Lake Lucerne.  

Franzen describes the event as “straightforward,” noting that running the resort under normal circumstances, with guests on less tight schedules, can ironically be more challenging. His highlight? Standing in the lobby, watching global leaders casually chatting while admiring the stunning views. Clearly, they felt at home. 

Ali Catterall is an award-winning writer, journalist and filmmaker whose writing has featured in the Guardian, Time Out, GQ, Film4, Word magazine and the Big Issue, among many others. Ali is also the writer and director of the 2023 film Scala!!! or, The Incredibly Strange Rise and Fall of the World's Wildest Cinema and How It Influenced a Mixed-up Generation of Weirdos and Misfit.

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