Mountain destinations throughout the country report a surge in Swiss guests from June to August. The average number of overnight hotel stays rose by a substantial 37%, strongly influenced by the mountain resorts that are traditionally popular with locals. That is one million more overnight stays than at the same time in 2019.

However, foreign demand for Swiss mountain summer vacations remains within narrow limits. Despite the first tourists from neighboring countries and the Benelux countries, local tourism players are expecting a decline of at least 44 percent compared to the previous year, i.e. 1.3 million fewer foreign hotel nights.

This huge drop could not be compensated for by the additional Swiss guests. As a result, the overall balance for the summer vacation season in the mountains also looks negative, with a drop of over 5% compared to the previous year.

Mountain vacations in Switzerland

The traditional Alpine destinations in particular are more popular than ever with Swiss guests, both as day trips and overnight stays. This boom is also attracting many local "first visitors" to the mountains who had never before taken a Swiss mountain summer vacation. Encouragingly, many of these Swiss tourists are staying longer in the destinations when they stay overnight and are spending more than they did in the past.

Stays and visits from the other language region continue to be in high demand: French-speaking Swiss are discovering German-speaking Switzerland, as Guido Buob, Managing Director of Appenzellerland Tourism (AI), among others, vividly describes: "We ran out of French brochures back in July and had to reprint them." Bruno Huggler, Director of Crans-Montana Tourism & Congress, also confirms a strong increase in guests from French-speaking Switzerland in particular.

Devastating situation in the cities

Tourists from overseas with their preference for city breaks are still missing. And business and conference tourism is also still largely absent. Events are also still having to be canceled due to the pandemic. This is hitting tourism providers in Swiss cities hard.

Foreign guests alone accounted for over 2.5 million hotel overnight stays during the summer vacation months, which corresponds to a drop of 63 percent. In some medium-sized cities, however, there were definitely more Swiss guests this summer. Here too, they often came from other language regions and spent a higher daily budget than in the previous year.

The major mountain railroads and top attractions, which are usually popular with tourists from overseas, are also still suffering greatly from the absence of long-distance visitors.

Negative overall balance emerging

In the city and in the mountains, there was a total shortfall of 3.2 million overnight hotel stays from June to August, which is -27% compared to the previous year. Tourism organizations and providers across the country are very concerned and cautious about the outlook for autumn: due to the great uncertainties caused by the pandemic, it is difficult or even impossible for destinations and service providers to make forecasts. However, the current booking situation is very weak and concerns about further major declines are widespread.

"Build Smart" offers complete solutions in the field of energy and building technology and combines the areas of electrical, heating, sanitary, ventilation and air conditioning. This wide range of products and services is also reflected in the new appearance: in a spatial form inspired by modern architecture, it is visualized that "Build Smart" combines everything under one roof.

The website communicates quickly and concisely in static and animated form and is used online and offline in various applications.

After 50 years of women's soccer in Switzerland, the top league finally has a sponsor in the form of AXA. As part of the commitment, the National League A has been renamed "Axa Women's Super League". The name already hints at what Axa and the Swiss Football Association are jointly aiming for: Namely, to put women's football on the same level as the men's professional league and to give women the recognition and support they deserve.

This support includes - among many other things - media attention and increased visibility. To this end, Publicis developed a campaign to draw attention to the elite league and its commitment, while motivating women in sports to keep at it.

At the heart of the campaign is an energetic film in which women are confronted with common prejudices and clichés, followed by a strong message not to listen to them and instead to believe in themselves. In line with Axa's brand promise: "Know you can".

The film, which will be used on TV and in various online formats, is flanked by POS posters and a multi-level content concept that gives users the opportunity to engage with Swiss women's football in a more in-depth and playful way. The campaign is complemented by numerous internal measures that involve Axa employees in the commitment.

The cross-media campaign will be in place from August throughout the entire soccer season and will be continuously supplemented. For example, some exciting collaborations are planned, according to a statement.

International Women's Day, Men's Day, Mother's Day or Father's Day - there are many holidays that are used by companies for special email campaigns to reach the female or male target group. Through "gender marketing", markets are segmented by gender and products and services are marketed according to the needs of female and male consumers. The aim of such gender-specific campaigns is to formulate a target group-specific approach for the advertising campaigns.

The company specializing in target groups Audience Serv has looked into the topic of "gender-specific advertising campaigns" and used an in-house analysis of user data to determine the main differences in user behavior between men and women. For the study, almost 7,000 emails sent over the last three months within Germany and Europe were analyzed. Based on the results, tips and approaches were summarized to help companies reach the female or male audience in corresponding campaigns.

In order to analyze different user behavior, Audience Serv focused on the average open and click rates of both genders. The evaluations show that women and men start reading their emails between 6 and 9 am. The highest probability of email interactions for both genders is between 9am and 5pm. This means that both female and male recipients are particularly active in their email inboxes during regular working hours.

If we take a closer look at the results, differences within this time frame become clear: women tend to respond to emails particularly frequently during lunchtime from 12 noon to 2 pm. Male interaction peaks at 9am, 12pm and 5pm. If you plan to send newsletters to female users, sending at lunchtime can be successful. Men, on the other hand, can be reached during working hours.

Awareness versus call-to-action

Another aspect is female behavior after normal working hours (after 7 pm). On the one hand, women open their emails more often than men during this period, but their click-through rate is lower in comparison. If your marketing campaign for women aims to increase their brand awareness and provide informative content, sending after working hours is a good time to attract attention. For call-to-action campaigns, contact during regular working hours is a better choice.

Repeated retrieval of e-mails

Based on the analysis, it can also be stated that women tend to open an email more than once than men. Opening an email multiple times is in line with the customer journey and shows that there is more than one point of contact between the customer and the brand along the way. The same applies to email conversion.

To gain more insight into user behavior, opening and click rates were analyzed with regard to different age groups. The result shows that women up to the age of 60 are more active with emails than men, who in turn show comparatively greater participation from the age of 60.

Age and click rate

This behavioral structure is consistent with the usual customer personas. Women and men between the ages of 40 and 60 are considered by many companies to be the main target group for their products and services. As salaries generally increase with age, the willingness to consume also grows - which is reflected in higher click rates. The study also shows that women between the ages of 40 and 60 achieve the highest click rates, while email interaction increases for men between 50 and 70. Differences in the behavior of different age groups should be taken into account when determining marketing strategies and defining the target group.

A comparison of the opening rate in relation to the reception rate shows that women and men have similar interests. However, these are prioritized differently. While fashion, shopping, leisure and gaming topics generate the highest open rates for both genders, dating, health and entertainment are among the most appealing topics for men. Female users, on the other hand, are interested in astrology, cosmetics and travel.

Avoid clichés, consider visual components

In order to determine the ideal target group for your advertising campaign, the interest of the target group should be taken into account. It is also important to take other factors into account for a successful campaign. With gender-specific advertising messages, care should be taken to avoid clichés. This is particularly advisable for gender-related campaigns, such as Women's Day. This is because female customers prefer humor and inspiration and find particular appeal when the content is conveyed through emotions, people, family or animals. Male users, on the other hand, prefer campaigns with information and competitive situations. This campaign content must also be transferred to the visual level: Clear, bright newsletters with an emotional appeal win over female readers, while men find a rational approach with technical details and comparisons appealing.

• In general, the advertising message should No cliché message become. A careful approach and sensitivity are the key to a successful campaign.
• Design gender-specific campaigns at Consideration of interest, approach and designWomen prefer bright, clear newsletters with an emotional touch. Categories such as fashion & consumption are in demand among them. Men respond to rational and technical newsletters that contain information on topics such as government, fashion and leisure.
• If emails are sent in the traditional way, it is advisable to send newsletters during the regular Working hours from 9 am to 5 pm. Click rates are likely to be particularly high for women around midday (12 to 2 pm). However, it should be noted that user behavior differs from database to database and individual analyses are useful for each company.
• Female recipients up to the age of 60 have shown stronger interactions with emails than men of the same age group. Age group. Women have the highest interaction rates between the ages of 40 and 60. Depending on the campaign objective, these differences should be taken into account when determining the target group.

As the name suggests, the focus is on the success story of "Arosa Bärenland". Based on the game "HQ Trivia", prominent guests and ambassadors of "Arosa Bärenland" host the approximately 10-minute shows at regular intervals, during which participants can win prizes. The hosts include Monika Fasnacht, Frank Baumann, actor Andrea Zogg and also Pascal Jenny, tourism director of Arosa.

The game is broadcast live and includes 10 questions with three possible answers. The winners are those who have correctly answered all the questions about Arosa Bärenland by the end. "MillioBär" is broadcast exclusively on mobile devices (iOS and Android).

The aim of the video quiz is on the one hand to promote Arosa Bärenland, but on the other hand also to impart knowledge about bears. In a playful way, background topics are brought closer to the participants.

Successful start

Already in the first edition, several hundred users tuned in live. In the end, six winners remained who had answered all the questions correctly. The video quiz was accompanied by communication on the social media channels of Arosa Tourism and Vier Pfoten. "MillioBär" is the first video quiz of this kind in Switzerland that is not operated by a media house. Arosa Tourism provided the concept, Yoveo is responsible for the technical implementation as well as the video production.

"Digital products with the components video, quiz and mobile are currently also very popular internationally," says Andreas Herren, co-partner at Yoveo. "They make it possible to convey content in a targeted and efficient way, while guaranteeing a very high level of engagement."

Webrepublic was one of the first agencies in the DACH region to be accepted into Google's International Growth Program. This enables clients to be actively supported in international, holistic expansion strategies. Webrepublic conducted an initial analysis for Büchi Labortechnik.

The new partnership gives Webrepublic exclusive access to Google's global analysis tools, which are used to create reports on consumer behavior and trends in international markets for specific industries and companies. Based on these analyses, Webrepublic advises its clients on their expansion strategy and identifies opportunities for existing and new markets.

The agency was selected for the Google International Growth Program due to its expertise in search engine marketing and high quality in international client projects and was accepted into it after successfully completing the associated course and exams.

Thomas Meyer, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sunrise, echoed the same sentiment, saying that the deal was basically the same as last year.

In the first attempt to marry Sunrise and UPC last year, Swiss competition regulators had granted approval without conditions or requirements. At the time, Sunrise wanted to take over UPC, but failed due to resistance from shareholders led by Germany's Freenet (Werbewoche.ch reported).

The industrial logic of the deal is undeniable, Fries said. Consolidation in the Swiss market is necessary, he said. Together, UPC and Sunrise would become a more potent challenger to market leader Swisscom. The combination of the new ultra-fast mobile technology 5G and UPC's cable network could provide 90 percent of households with Internet speeds of up to one gigabit per second next year, he said. In addition, the joint venture has growth opportunities.

Extent of job cuts unclear

Fries expects annual synergies of 275 million Swiss francs. They are to be leveraged, for example, in IT or the elimination of redundancies after integration. There are also savings opportunities in operating costs. It should be possible to realize 70 to 80 percent of the synergies in three years. The full synergies would be realized after four to five years.

Fries did not want to disclose how many jobs would be cut, saying that the planning had not yet reached that stage. Who will be the new head of the merged telecom provider has also not yet been decided, he said. "We want a management team with the best people from both sides," Fries said. He also said no decision has been made yet on the brands. However, Fries said he praised Sunrise as an "exceptional brand," while UPC was a "strong brand" that had been burdened in the past.

Fiber optic construction with Salt on ice

As a result of the new wedding effort, the recently agreed cooperation between Sunrise and Salt for fiber rollout will be put on hold, Meyer said. Sunrise and Salt had set up the joint venture Swiss Open Fiber in May to lay 1.5 million new fiber-optic lines to households (FTTH) over the next five to seven years.

This would mean that over 70 percent of the population would be connected to the ultra-fast data highways. That would be about twice as many as today. Both wanted to invest 3 billion Swiss francs in the expansion.

No resistance expected from shareholders

The move to resume wedding talks came from Liberty Global. "We're sitting on $10 billion in liquidity," Fries said. They want to invest that, he said. Given Sunrise's performance, the logic of the deal and the need for market consolidation in Switzerland, they have now made the offer to buy, he said. Sunrise shareholders are to receive CHF 5 billion in cash. Sunrise's enterprise value is 6.8 billion francs, it said. The negotiations took less than a month.

Fries and Meyer do not expect any resistance from shareholders as they did last year: they had brought major shareholder Freenet on board right from the start. And unlike then, the deal will not be put to a public vote at a shareholders' meeting, but each shareholder will decide for himself whether he wants to accept the offer, said Meyer.

In the last transaction, Sunrise was the buyer, Fries said. At the time, he said, Freenet didn't like the terms. "Now Freenet is the seller." The entire board of directors, including Freenet, unanimously backed the purchase offer, he said.

After the takeover, Sunrise is to be delisted from the Swiss stock exchange SIX. A return, however, is an option for Liberty Global CEO Fries: "The chances of that are very good. We have no problem with listed companies, our subsidiary in Belgium is a listed company." He said he was looking at this option once UPC and Sunrise had merged and business was good.

Syndicom welcomes merger, but demands social plan for job cuts

The Syndicom trade union is calling for a social plan for job cuts in the wake of the merger of UPC and Sunrise. "Due to the resulting synergies and the tense economic situation, job cuts are unavoidable," the union said in a statement on Wednesday.

As the social partner of both Sunrise and UPC, Syndicom will be closely involved in the merger. All the more reason to strive for a social plan that gives those affected sufficient time to find equivalent follow-up solutions. Syndicom will therefore place particular emphasis on the further training of those affected during the social plan negotiations, according to the communiqué. Syndicom is calling for the merger to be structured in a socially responsible way.

Syndicom welcomes the planned acquisition of Sunrise by UPC owner Liberty Global: "The takeover and subsequent merger will strengthen the Swiss telecommunications market and secure jobs in the long term." This would create a strong company that would make a significant contribution to the permanent network expansion. (SDA)

Roger Kobel, Marketing Manager at Next Event, emphasizes the importance of innovative ticketing solutions in the current climate.

On Wednesday, the Federal Council decided that from October 1, large-scale events will be allowed again under strict conditions. Nevertheless, the current uncertainty at events remains great, the situation can change again at any time. Organizers need a perspective, because the start of sales of events next year is already pending.

With the NextEvent seating plan editor, each customer chooses his seat. The software takes over the guarantee of the Covid-19 specifications and automatically blocks those seats that are necessary to maintain the spacing rules. The rules can be adjusted in NextEvent at any time, allowing the event organizer to react promptly and flexibly to new cantonal requirements. If a relaxation of the measures becomes apparent before the start of the event, as happened on Wednesday for the period from October 1, for example, the blocked groups of seats can be released for sale immediately in NextEvent.

With the cloud-based software, event organizers can handle the entire administrative process of small and large events easily, completely digitally and personalized. The Dynamic Distancing function also provides support to organize and handle events and booking securely, efficiently and stress-free. Maximum capacities and seating availabilities of stadiums and venues are defined in advance and guarantee compliance with distancing rules via control functions.

New framework conditions demand innovative ticketing functions

The beleaguered event industry needs new event, ticketing and congress management solutions with an intelligent, automated control system. To minimize further huge losses, a positive customer experience already at the ticket purchase is essential. Roger Kobel, Marketing Manager at NextEvent emphasizes: "Technological developments, digital possibilities as well as the Covid 19 rules have fundamentally changed the organization and handling of event organizers in the event industry. This is exactly where NextEvent comes in." The management of events, conferences and large-scale events is becoming increasingly extensive and complex due to compliance with Covid-19 rules. The event organizer wants transparent, digital and fully automated processes so that he has more time for his more important tasks.

Simple and secure registration for participants 

Participants register with just a few clicks and pay for their online ticket without cash via NextEvent. They store their ticket digitally in their mobile wallet. To ensure the consistency of visitor data and meet contact tracing requirements, organizers can have their visitors verify their cell phone number and even request a selfie for unique identification at the entrance. NextEvent's tickets also come with an encrypted QR code that stores all services and information. Admission can be controlled using any smartphone or tablet. In addition, offline scanning is possible and tickets from other organizers can also be accepted.

If an event still has to be canceled, donation options can be entered in addition to the fully automatic reimbursement, so that the participant can support the organizer in difficult situations.

Adrian Dudle (left) will hand over the position of Chief Legal Officer to Manuel Liatowitsch (right) at the end of September.

The current Chief Legal Officer, 54-year-old Adrian Dudle, is leaving the company at his own request at the end of September. As Head of the Central Legal Department, Dudle actively supported Ringier during the transformation phase, including the international expansion of the Group, the formation of various joint ventures, and the development of the internal control system. He now intends to devote himself to his board of directors and foundation board mandates as well as a long-cherished book project.

Manuel Liatowitsch, 48, has been a partner at the Zurich law firm Schellenberg Wittmer since 2008 and a member of the Executive Board since 2015. In addition to his specialty - complex ownership, estate and governance disputes worldwide - he has also made a name for himself advising large family businesses. Liatowitsch studied and earned his doctorate at the University of Basel and has held regular teaching positions at the University of Zurich since 2005. He will take up his post on October 1, 2020.

Around 250 employees will lose their jobs and the site in Taiwan will be closed, Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker announced on Tuesday (local time). Baker admitted that the economic impact of the pandemic had significantly depressed sales.

A key source of income for Mozilla is a deal with Google: the internet company pays for its search engine to be preset in the Firefox web browser. Google reported a decline in online advertising revenue for the past quarter.

With the new services, Mozilla wants to focus on data protection offerings for Internet users, among other things, as Baker announced. Investments in services for software developers, on the other hand, are to be scaled back. (SDA)

The new function is intended to give Twitter users more control over the conversations under their own tweets. Even before tweeting, users can choose from three options as to who can reply to their tweet:

1. all (default setting on Twitter)
2. only people you follow yourself
3. only people who are mentioned in their own tweet.

Tweets with the latter two settings will be marked accordingly and the reply icon will be grayed out for people who cannot reply. However, people who cannot reply can still view, retweet, retweet with comment, share and like these tweets.

Test phase since May  

Twitter launched the first tests for the new function in May of this year. Users within the test group used the new Conversation Settings for interviews, discussions, sharing opinions and announcements. The behavior of these users and the results of feedback interviews and surveys have shown Twitter that the new settings features can help people feel safer and better protected from spam and abuse in their tweets. At the same time, they have led to better conversations as more of your thoughts are shared. And, of course, it is still possible to see the other points of view.

Since Twitter is for public conversation, it is very important that people can see different perspectives. Twitter is therefore continuing to work on making it easier for people to find the complete conversation history via retweets with comments. A new label is also being tested to clearly indicate when the new Conversation Settings are being used.

Larger discussion groups planned

Twitter will continue to update the new tweet settings based on user feedback. In the coming months, Twitter also plans to add an option to invite more people to a conversation that has already started. In addition, there will be clear notifications for users when they are invited to a conversation with the new settings, as well as further options to view the entire conversation history.

After earning a bachelor's degree at the University of Bern, Dempster gained experience in the music, event and communications industries in Berlin, Paris and New York before completing a Master of Science in Business Administration, also at the University of Bern.

Lisa Dempster has been with Propaganda for five years, where she has implemented a variety of successful ambient media, guerrilla marketing and engagement marketing projects for cultural and commercial clients as a consultant and project manager and, since 2017, as head of the consulting team.

In the future, her focus will be more on the strategic development of the agency as well as the optimization of operational business processes and the implementation of projects. Marko Culic, Master of Arts in Marketing, Services & Communication Management from the University of St. Gallen and also with Propaganda for five years, has taken over the management of the consulting team as Head of Advisory at the same time.