The Diana Hotel was one of the first hotel facilities in Madonna di Campiglio. The first building dates back to 1887, it was subsequently enlarged and changed during its short yet intense story. The last two thorough refurbishments were carried out in 1987 and from 7 April until 12 December 2008.

Madonna di Campiglio was born on the ruins of an ancient commercial route linking Italy and Germany. Around year 1180 A.D. the first building was erected, a hospice offering pilgrims refreshments and protection

Around 1850, thanks to the initiative of G.B. Righi and, later on, of the renowned hotel owner, Franz Joseph Österreicher, from Trento, the natural son of emperor Franz Joseph of Hapsburg, began the first tourist inflows from southern Tyrol, from northern Italy, England. The Society of the Tridentine Alpinists, set up in 1875, began the building of a few refuges in high spots. The locality thus became a well-known tourists’ resort throughout Europe.

In 1947, Fritz Österreicher, Franz Joseph’s son, together with other 32 people founded the Società Funivie – a company of cableways - and, in January 1948, there took place the inaugural toast to the first Mount Spinale chair-lift.

Madonna di Campiglio is nowadays defined as the Pearl of the Dolomites, and just in these last few days the Dolomites have been made a candidate to becoming Natural Patrimony of Humanity.

The proclamation took place on Friday, 26 June, 2009, at the Palace of Congresses, Seville, Spain, with the unanimous judgment of the 21 members of the UNESCO’s World Council.
The new natural patrimony of humanity includes nine Dolomitic groups extending over as many as 142,000 hectares, to which are to be added further 85 hectares of “cushion” areas, for a total 231,000 hectares, broken up among 5 provinces: Trento, Bolzano, Belluno, Pordenone and Udine.
Under the protecting wing of the UNESCO have thus come the group formed with Pelmo and Croda da Lago, in Veneto; the Marmolada massif, spanning between Trentino and Veneto and inclusive of the highest summit in the Dolomites (3,343 metres) and the most significant glacier; the grouped formed with the Pale of San Martino, Pale of San Lucano and Bellunese Dolomites, mostly in Veneto territory, but also in Trentino; the group formed with the Friulian Dolomites and of “Beyond the Piave River” - the eastern-most -, to be found in the Friulian provinces of Pordenone and Udine; the northern Dolomites, rising between Alto Adige and Veneto and inclusive of the fretted Cadini, the candid Dolomites of Sesto, the austere Dolomites of Ampezzo, the lunar Dolomites of Fanes, Senes and Braies; the Puez-Odle group, all rising in Upper Adige territory, presently a wonderful natural park; the group consisting in the Sciliar, the Catinaccio and the Latemar, bridging Alto Adige and Trentino; the Dolomites of Brenta - the westernmost -, where the brown bear still lives, all in Trentino; the Rio delle Foglie, an outstanding canyon - unique worldwide -, whose many-coloured, rocky stratifications and countless fossils of prehistoric animals allow visitors to ‘read’ the geological history of the Earth as if from an open book.
The announcement was made on Friday 26 June at the end of a session of the World Heritage Committee, in Seville, which accepted the candidacy expressed in the previous weeks by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), an international organism that had been asked to carry out a first examination of the candidacies to the UNESCO listing of natural heritage.
The acknowledgment arrives 17 years after the fist candidacy of the Dolomites for this fundamental act of recognition, which now enters them among the Earth’s 176 natural gems, because of the «extraordinary beauty of their landscapes and their specific geological features».