Schladming is a small former mining town in the northwest of the Austrian state of Styria that is now a popular tourist destination. It has become a large winter-sports resort and has held various skiing competitions, including most notably the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1982 and the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 2013. The shopping area has many cafes and restaurants, and a variety of shops that cater to tourists.

The FIS Alpine Ski World Cup is the top international circuit of alpine skiing competitions, launched in 1966 by a group of ski racing friends and experts which included French journalist Serge Lang and the alpine ski team directors from France and the USA. It was soon backed by International Ski Federation president Marc Hodler during the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1966 at Portillo, Chile, and became an official FIS event in the spring of 1967 after the FIS Congress at Beirut, Lebanon.