Around 25% of the CHF 12 million recovery budget that Switzerland Tourism ST received in additional funding from the Swiss parliament, earmarked for the pandemic-hit tourism sector, went to cities in 2020, since they suffered most from the global travel restrictions. The focus was on a broad offer push. In return, ST’s city partners put together attractively priced city offers for summer and autumn 2020, and ST ensured that these were publicised through all relevant online and offline platforms.   

In one such measure, ST published a 12-page cities supplement in “Coopzeitung” magazine (Swiss City Swap), which has a circulation of 2.7 million. An extra Cities magazine containing 20 city tips was also published at short notice (print run of 300,000). It included a flyer containing offers from all the city partners.

ST also secured 3,000 leads through to the applicable offer pages via a novel Pinterest cities campaign, and thanks to successful media relations work by ST, “20 Minuten” published an autumn special, which also contained numerous attractive hotel packages.

Finally, ST launched the Bed ’n’ Bureau offer in response to the new home working situation in Switzerland, and in August 2020 the entire package of measures was supplemented by an online push for all offers. That led to a further 6.3 million marketing contacts and 25,000 sessions on the corresponding offer pages.