Drawing attention to Switzerland with marketing
The Swiss Tourism organization is spending around 57 million Swiss francs to draw attention to the country's beauty worldwide for the coming summer. Half of the money comes from the industry and half from the federal government.
A three-pronged strategy - aimed at Europeans, Americans and Asians and, thirdly, at Swiss residents themselves - is intended to boost business in Swiss tourism. According to the Director of Switzerland Tourism, Jürg Schmid, something urgently needs to be done for the Swiss vacation region, as many of the country's tourist facilities are barely making any money. One could even speak of a "non-profit industry", he told the news agency SDA. For this reason, his organization has been trying for around two years to play on one of Switzerland's particular strengths, namely its geographical compactness. Visitors to the country can experience four cultures, from urban to rural, within a relatively small area in a very short space of time, explains the director. In other countries, you always have to get on a plane to do this, he tells SDA.
To this end, Switzerland Tourism has been running the "Grand Tour of Switzerland" marketing campaign for several years, which aims to anchor the idea of a compact tour of Switzerland tailored to individual needs in people's minds. This offer is expected to attract around 50,000 visitors to Switzerland in 2016 alone. From 2021, the tourism organization expects around 200,000 guests to take up the idea of the round trip and generate a turnover of around 225 million francs. When asked about the concrete impact of the money spent, Schmid refers to an evaluation whose methodology was developed together with a university. According to this, his advertising measures generate around 16 percent of all overnight stays in Switzerland every year. As the director explained to SDA, this generates a turnover of around 3 billion Swiss francs. (SDA)
