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In 2020, the global Covid-19 pandemic transformed priorities for domestic and international visitors and created different needs: safety, cleanliness, convenience, flexibility and the ability to work from anywhere became top concerns. Working in conjunction with accommodation partners and industry associations, Switzerland Tourism ST responded to these trends, developing suitable offers and measures.
Which tourism region enjoyed the greatest growth in domestic visitors (hotel overnight stays) in pandemic-hit 2020?
- Ticino
- Bern
- Graubünden
According to figures from the Federal Statistical Office, Graubünden saw the biggest percentage rise in hotel overnight stays (+10.3%), followed by Ticino (+5.0%) and the Bern region (+2.6%).
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48-hour cancellation
One such example was the freedom to cancel directly booked accommodation free of charge up to 48 hours before arrival. For instance, some 350 businesses listed on MySwitzerland.com made this option available to their guests in summer 2020, providing them with a high level of flexibility.
Clean & Safe campaign
On the initiative of ST, the tourism industry associations launched the Clean & Safe campaign, with a new label and dedicated website to communicate clearly and simply about the mandatory safety concepts in place in Switzerland. The sector-wide label is an indicator of safety and cleanliness and has emerged as key guidance for international visitors in particular, as the experiences of ST’s employees in the markets have shown. The media both in Switzerland and other countries also reported widely on the label, for instance the international news site Travel Daily News. By the end of 2020, around 4,000 businesses had registered for the label.
A change of scene with Bed ’n’ Bureau
Starting with nine city hotels, ST launched the Bed ’n’ Bureau pilot project, aimed at people stuck working from home and in need of a change of scene in their work. ST expanded the offer to all tourist areas in November 2020. This gave digital nomads the option of Bed ’n’ Bureau at one of 27 hotels in the mountains or countryside.
All-in packages at the Snow Sports Hotels
Winter sports enthusiasts enjoy the ultimate in convenience through the new Snow Sports Hotels cooperation. A total of 70 hotels from across the whole of Switzerland are involved, all of which are specialist Snow Sports Hotels, as verified by HotellerieSuisse.
Hotel finder and restaurant platform
A hotel finder launched in summer 2020 on MySwitzerland.com/hotels makes it easier to find a hotel that meets the user’s specific needs – be that a trendy design hotel, family-friendly accommodation or an adventure staying on a farm (agrotourism). It takes just a few clicks for the hotel search engine to achieve highly accurate matches, making the booking process easier. The search results also incorporate special offers from Switzerland Travel Center (STC). The hotel finder, together with the hotel pages included on it, had recorded around five million page views by the end of 2020.
ST had earlier launched a new restaurant platform featuring 700 establishments in 2019 to help people find somewhere suitable to dine. The platform was expanded in 2020, and MySwitzerland.com/food now lists more than 6,000 restaurants. 1,000 of these have been chosen by a panel for inclusion in a “Best of” selection.
ST markets the restaurant selection digitally in the form of retargeting campaigns. This means that internet users visiting a particular website are shown targeted digital overlays containing content from the restaurant platform as they browse. ST achieves this using geotargeting, a way of delivering regionally optimised overlaid web content.
Thanks to ST’s good key media management, the platform was covered on several occasions in the lifestyle sections of the free Swiss newspaper 20 Minuten, including focuses on country inns and restaurants that serve game.
