Facebook was the strongest social media channel at the end of 2019 with a total of 2.6 million fans (an increase of 96,052 compared to 2018). Instagram takes second place with 677,070 fans (an increase of 188,190 compared to 2018).

Digitalisation permeates all areas at Switzerland Tourism. The focus is on MySwitzerland.com and social media.

Average engagement of 9.4%
Interaction with fans is another important measure of success. The engagement rate is calculated by Switzerland Tourism ST using the average number of likes, comments and shares per day, divided by the range of the posts. In 2019, this rate rose from 6.7% to 9.4%. The greatest engagement was in the Southeast Asia market with 23.4%. ST has 33 offices in 22 markets. ST’s employees manage 41 country-specific social media channels. In China, ST also manages the Weibo, WeChat and RenRen platforms. In the rest of the world, in addition to Facebook and Instagram, it is also responsible for Twitter, Pinterest and TripAdvisor. Microblogging service Twitter is particularly interesting for the B2B sector and is a popular research tool for journalists. In total, ST operates 24 Twitter accounts – from CEO tweets to tourist tips for visitors, for example from the Netherlands.

Influencer Summit in Davos Klosters
ST often works with selected influencers on a project-specific basis. The most relevant influencers worldwide receive personal invitations to the Influencer Summit. In 2019, the conference was held in Davos. Together with the Graubünden Ferien and Destination Davos Klosters organisations, ST welcomed 30 influencers from 22 different countries. The second iteration of the summit enabled ST to position itself as an opinion leader in influencer management – both within the industry and among media creators. This is evident in the “Rundschau” report on Swiss television. What’s more, the first winter summit was held at the beginning of 2020 in Andermatt. 

“How to winter like a Swiss”
The Swiss winter is a popular topic on social media. This was evident in the “How to winter like a Swiss” campaign, for example. For the 2018/2019 season, ST invited 16 influencers with a total of 1.5 million followers. They were given the chance to experience Switzerland for themselves according to the motto “Upgrade your winter.” Everything was presented from the perspective of a Swiss local. The ambassadors for winter in Switzerland, who included Dutch professional snowboarder Cheryl Maas, put their personal travel programme online. The pages published by the various ambassadors attracted a great deal of interest: They were viewed a total of 37,000 times for an average duration of 9 minutes.

Social media in the Gulf States
Platforms like Facebook are in widespread use in the Gulf States (GCC): that’s why ST manages dedicated accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter with a total of 134,856 fans and followers.
The ST regional office in Dubai works with very different influencers: the first event with 20 Arab influencers took place in Geneva in June. There was a lively exchange among the participants themselves, but also with the eight tourism partners (Lucerne/Lake Lucerne Region, Zurich Tourism, Lake Geneva Region, Interlaken, Bern, Engadine St Moritz, Basel and Crans-Montana). The event generated 3 million likes and comments on Instagram. There were 10 million views on Snapchat and 3 million views on YouTube.

Support campaigns for the Grand Tour of Switzerland
The ST Social Media Team ran several digital marketing campaigns in 2019. For example, during the peak touring season in August, ads for the Grand Tour of Switzerland ran – on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. There were 43,000 accesses to MySwitzerland.com/grandtour and 3,000 clicks on the Spotify campaign.