Switzerland woos more Thai tourists in winter

“Switzerland is not only for ski freaks,” said Batiste Pilet, director for Southeast Asia at Switzerland Tourism, in a media briefing for Switzerland’s season travelling campaigns, adding that travellers can enjoy the natural spots and “civilization of the country” on the same day.

Switzerland has long been a popular tourist destination for visitors from Southeast Asia due to the country's abundance of jaw-dropping natural attractions, pleasant year-round temperature, picturesque landscapes, and must-see destinations like the Alps and Rhone.

Thai travellers are the largest number of visitors from Southeast Asia to the Alpine nation.

But during wintertime, Thai travellers are well behind Singapore, Malaysia, and others in the region because those countries usually enjoy extended Christmas breaks. But going by Thailand’s holiday season, April and May are the most popular months for Thai tourists to travel overseas.

In April, the number of Thai travellers account for one-fourth of the total number of 200,000 Thai visitors who fly directly to Switzerland in an entire year (not including Thais entering the country from neighbouring countries.)

Switzerland Tourism expects the number of tourists will fully recover to 200,000 or higher in 2023, said Martin Nydegger, CEO of Switzerland Tourism, on his visit to Thailand to promote the country’s winter campaign.

In 2022, the country started “Swiss Winter Camp Asia”, a skiing competition to draw more attention from Asia-Pacific tourists. But due to the travel restrictions earlier this year, the turn-out of participants from Thailand and elsewhere was lower than expected.

In 2023, the competition will resume from March 19-23 in Thailand in cooperation with the Ski and Snowboard Association of Thailand. The authority expects to attract more than 100 participants from all over Asia for the four-day programme.

“Swisstainable” is another strategy the country has launched to win over more tourists by positioning itself as the world’s most sustainable travel destination. The sustainability strategy focuses on getting people to have greater environmental awareness while using the resources responsibly.

“It’s not just a cool name. No one could copy that, and it’s not a marketing gag. The dilemma of people in the tourism industry is that tourism means mobility. You move people from A to B and most of the time by airplane and car,” said Martin.

The strategy, developed by the Lucerne University for Applied Sciences and Arts in partnership with Switzerland Tourism and travel agencies, originally aims to improve transparency for guests about activities and products in the field of sustainability. It will support the commitment of service providers towards a comprehensive sustainable development of Swiss tourism.

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