In order to showcase these diverse options, Switzerland Tourism has taken its multiple offerings across the four Indian cities of Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and Delhi through its recently-concluded annual roadshow. Key partners included the cities of Zurich, Lucerne, Interlaken and St. Moritz, regions such as Lake Geneva Region and the Swiss Travel System among others.
Switzerland’s increasing number of Indian overnights can be attributed to the very successful and talented Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh coming on board as the brand ambassador in August 2016. There was a 23.4 per cent increase in the overnights spent by Indians in Switzerland in 2017. This number has exponentially gone up, primarily on account of the well-received Ad campaigns that had Ranveer Singh showcasing the different experiences available in Switzerland.
“This year has also been a very exciting one for Switzerland Tourism with the passionate and effervescent Ranveer Singh continuing as our brand ambassador… Each year, we see a growing interest among Indian travellers but 2017, thanks to Ranveer, the overnights have been extremely high. Our numbers this year are also encouraging – we are up 10 per cent in hotel overnights in the period January to August 2018 as compared to the same period last year. Besides this campaign, we also continue our travel trade campaigns – with regular webinars, training sessions in tier 2 and tier 3 cities as well our new e-learning modules on the Switzerland Travel Academy,” said Claudio Zemp, Director – India, Switzerland Tourism.
“We together with Swiss International Airlines have recently introduced the Stopover Switzerland program allowing travellers to stop in Switzerland from 1 to 4 days on their way to any other destination. We offer multiple packages – for individual cities as well as multi-destination packages. This would give travellers a chance to sample Switzerland without having to pay anything extra for airfare. We are sure that these travellers will then return for a longer holiday once they have experienced the charms of Switzerland. We are happy to note that in the last few years, apart from the metro cities, we have managed to penetrate the Tier 2/3 markets as well and we see not only group travel but also FIT’s from these cities,” said Ritu Sharma, Deputy Director, Switzerland Tourism India.
