For three weeks, the shop windows of New York’s luxury department store Saks Fifth Avenue were dedicated to the cities of Bern and Lucerne, the airline SWISS, the Swiss Travel System and the Swiss summer in general. The location in the Manhattan district has a high footfall: the department store estimates a total footfall of 36 million in three weeks.

What was the percentage growth of the hotel overnights of North American guests over the last 5 years (2014-2019)?

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50 media professionals attend the launch event
To launch its cooperation with Saks Fifth Avenue, Switzerland Tourism ST organised a three-day event in the New York department store as well as its Toronto branch. Over 100 guests, including 50 journalists, accepted the invitation. At the same time, the campaign was promoted digitally on a Saks Fifth Avenue microsite, played on social media and distributed via e-mail and advertising banners. All told, these measures generated a total of 43 million marketing contacts.

Significant upswing for Summer and Cities
Cooperation with the luxury department store had a positive impact on the number of hotel overnight stays by North American visitors (US and Canada): according to the Federal Statistical Office, the number of hotel overnight stays in the summer months of 2019 rose by 8.8% to over 1.3 million (May to August 2019 compared to 2018). Such measures contributed to North Americans travelling to Swiss cities more often than average. The city of Lucerne was the frontrunner in the summer months of 2019 with an increase of 2% to almost 146,000 hotel overnight stays. Likewise, the city of Bern recorded an increase of 8.3% in the same period with a total of over 37,500 hotel overnight stays.