Futurist Patrick Dixon opened Switzerland Vacation Day in Interlaken with a keynote address entitled “Meet your future: discuss travel trends with Patrick Dixon”. In his talk about current trends in tourism, he gave participants his top tip: you have to get a feel for how guests see things and empathise with them.

The 1,270 sector representatives and experts had a selection of 40 different breakout sessions to choose from, each dealing with a particular future aspect of tourism. Visitors were able to put together their own programme from the wide variety of sessions on offer. The subject of influencer management and marketing seemed to strike a chord among the industry experts, as the breakout successions on those subjects attracted particularly large audiences. The Vacation Day in Interlaken achieved an overall satisfaction score of 8.0 (out of 10).

Switzerland Tourism ST awarded the Prix Bienvenu(German) for the sixth and final time. Among the winners in 2018 were the Hotel Glocke in Reckingen (VS), the Hotel Allegra in Pontresina (GR), the Micro Hotel in Basel (BS) and the Omnia in Zermatt (VS).