The Switzerland Convention and Incentive Bureau (SCIB) brings together the most important service suppliers in Swiss meeting and convention tourism. In April 2018, Daniel Egloff became the new SCIB president (see interview).

The 1,599 offers handled by the 20 SCIB employees in 2018 led to 824 meetings being carried out. Even though the actual turnover of CHF 74.8 million was lower than in 2017, the number of meetings increased. One success factor is the close proximity to customers, with 20 employees in 14 markets. Most meetings come from India with 145 meetings (some back-to back incentives), 118 from South East Asia and 104 from the UK and Ireland and 95 from Germany.

Valuable insight into German agency work

One of these locally based employees is Helena Videtic. For three years now, she has headed up the Frankfurt SCIB office and from there she looks after the German and Austrian market. These two markets generated a combined turnover of CHF 7.35 million in 2018.

To gain an even better understanding of customer requirements, she spent a week as a “trainee” at the Conference & Touring agency. The Berlin agency with 85 employees is among the top agencies for events and managed 1,789 projects in 2018. The German trade publication “tw tagungswirtschaft” ran a feature (in German) on her trainee experience and how it helped her to broaden her horizons. “It gave me a fascinating insight into agency work,” says Videtic. “The experience showed me how I can optimise my own working practices, and thanks to the media exposure we’ve been able to generate an additional 37,500 media contacts, so it was a good public relations exercise for us.”  

“A higher proportion of turnover from meetings increases diversification and provides a boost in the low season.”

Daniel Egloff

SCIB members have elected Daniel Egloff (47), an experienced expert in business tourism, as their new president. He has been Director of Basel Tourism and Convention Bureau since 2001.

What were your first impressions as the newly elected SCIB President?

I was delighted to see how engaged and efficient the SCIB team’s work with Barbra Albrecht is. At the same time, I was surprised to discover the extent to which MICE tourism plays a subordinate role in many destinations.

Why should destinations attach greater importance to business tourism?

There are various reasons. One is that added value from tourism is significantly higher than in the leisure segment. Another is that generating a higher proportion of turnover from meetings increases diversification and provides a boost in the low season. Finally, measuring the effectiveness of marketing, so as to continually improve processes, is easier here than in the leisure segment.

And how do you intend to persuade the sector to increase investment in the MICE segment?

SCIB will in future demonstrate even more clearly the impact that our activities make. The idea is to highlight how investment in this area pays off. We aim to achieve this by reviewing our KPIs, operating more with financial indicators and measuring even more rigorously which activities are successful and which ones are less so.

Facts and figures
Meetings   2018 2017
Budget CHF million 7.3 7.7
Share of total budget % 7.9 8.2
Tourism turnover CHF million 74.8 88.7 
Visits to MySwitzerland.com/meetings   303,772 305,403 
KAM-generated overnights   224,665 266,457 
Number of meetings, events & conferences   824 792
Number of quotation requests processed by SCIB   1,599 1,470