As part of the “Senses” campaign, ST rather appropriately sent blind Scottish comedian Jamie MacDonald on a journey of the senses through Switzerland.

With its intense colours and seasonal delights such as pumpkins, truffles, and chestnuts, no other season activates the five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch as much as autumn does. Switzerland Tourism (ST) focused on this very fact in its 2023 autumn campaign, which it appropriately named “Senses”. To illustrate this, ST sent blind Scottish comedian Jamie MacDonald on a journey of the senses through Switzerland, accompanied by his colleague Julia Sutherland.

The result of this is a film that takes a humorous look at the beauty of autumn in Switzerland. At the same time, the one-minute video inspired potential guests to experience the season with all five of their senses – or in MacDonald’s case, four. The Flims region was chosen as the filming location. “It’s just impossible to take a bad photo in Switzerland. It’s a blind photographer’s dream,” says Jamie MacDonald with a dash of his unmistakable humour.

Autumn in Switzerland was also promoted with many “sensory” activities, such as:

A rise in the number of overnight stays in autumn

Due to climate change, among other things, autumn in Switzerland is increasingly developing into an independent and relevant tourist season. According to the tourist accommodation statistics of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), there were almost 6.8 million hotel overnight stays in September and October 2019. In 2023, this figure had already risen to almost 7.4 million, for an increase of 9.2% – despite the continued absence of foreign guests following on from the coronavirus pandemic.

The “Senses” autumn campaign was therefore primarily aimed at guests from the European markets. ST focussed in particular on guests from Germany, Italy, France, the UK and Benelux, since the potential is particularly high in these key short-haul markets. According to the FSO, overnight stays by guests from the UK market increased by 103.3% in September and October 2022 compared with in 2021, while a 3.3% rise was seen for guests from Germany and an 8.2% rise for guests from Italy. Only in Benelux were hotel overnight stays down slightly, at -1.2%.

In 2023, the Benelux market fortunately once again recorded a small increase of 0.9%. The number of hotel overnight stays also rose for other important short-haul markets when compared with autumn 2022 (except for Italy): with Germany at +0.4%, France at +1.4% and the UK at +23.5%. The significant increase in the UK market is particularly impressive since the focus of the 2023 autumn campaign was a film featuring Scottish protagonists. This is a strong indication that this ST campaign has made a significant contribution to the positive development of hotel overnight stays among the UK market. 

In total, more than 370,000 additional hotel overnight stays (+5.3%) were generated in the autumn months of September and October 2023. This is a good indication that ST is on the right track here.

“Switzerland Tourism has been promoting autumn as a season in its own right for several years now – with the foliage map in 2020, for example, or exceptional wellness offers in nature in 2022. The autumn campaign has since become the second strongest after the summer. This shows how interested the industry is in this season and what potential it has,” says ST CEO Martin Nydegger.

64 million marketing contacts

The “Senses” autumn campaign ran from 4 September to 31 October 2023, with ST relying, for example, on screenings of the film for selected media professionals, cinema advertising in the UK, international media trips, collaborations with influencers, and online advertising with short clips. In total, the campaign generated around 64 million marketing contacts, 22 media articles (Benelux, Switzerland and the UK) with a total of 5.2 million media contacts and around 132,000 page views on MySwitzerland.ch/autumn. The video also had 16.6 million views on YouTube by the end of 2023.  

Facts and figures relating to all autumn activities, incl. campaign
Autumn campaign   2023 2022
Budget* CHF million 5.1 4.4
Share of total budget % 5.4 4.6
Target markets  
CH, DE, FR, IT, Benelux, UK, CN, GCC, US, SEA
CH, DE, FR, IT, Benelux, UK, CN, GCC, US, AT
Top advertising and marketing contacts million 204 198
Top media contacts (readers, viewers, listeners) million 912 580
Participants in ST press trips   – 57
Top media articles influenced   311 432 
*Including recovery funds **Only views of pages with specific autumn campaign content are counted.