Bangkok--Dec 6--eTurboNews
With tourism from India in Switzerland on the rise, India has become one of the top five emerging markets for Switzerland tourism.
Around 80,000 visitors have spent nearly 250,000 nights in Switzerland, according to the data for January-September this year.
"India is one of the fastest growing markets for Switzerland Tourism, the official nodal agency to promote tourism for the country, and is the second largest market in Asia after Japan," Federico Sommarugu, company director, Russia/CIS, India and Emerging Markets, said. "In the year 2005, there have been approximately 250,000 overnights in Switzerland from India. The Free Individual Traveler segment has seen tremendous growth, making it almost 50 percent of the total leisure travel to the country."
The other main markets for Switzerland include China, Russia, Korea and the Gulf countries.
"US, Japan and European nations still constitute 92 percent of tourists in Switzerland. But visitors from places such as India are fast growing in numbers. We have identified five such countries which will enjoy 9 percent of our tourism promotion budget despite them, at the moment, accounting for only 2 percent of incoming traffic," Sommaruga said.
Sommaruga added that India generates 24 percent of the traffic from all of the five 'strategic' countries. "It's important for us to expand this market as tourism accounts for 6.8 percent of our GDP. After all, we are a country with a population of 7.2 million but cater to 18 million visitors each year," he explained.
According to Swiss tourism authorities, Indians spend an average 450 Swiss-Francs per person per day on stay, food and shopping. This is one of the factors that has led to classification of India as a 'strategic market.'
"Indians account for 24 percent of the visitors from the 'emerging markets' which includes countries such as China, Russia and the Gulf nations," Sommaruga said, adding, "We are going to spend nine per cent of our promotional budget on these countries though they account for a total of just 2 percent of our current visitors," said Sommaruga.
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