Switzerland
Culturally diverse and cosmopolitan – many people in Switzerland highly rate Berlin as a city of trends. Excellent air and train links from Switzerland make Berlin easy to reach.
The German capital benefits from continuing high numbers of visitors from Switzerland. When they travel, the Swiss are strongly focused on quality. The strong Swiss franc supports their love of travel, and their spend on tourism in Berlin is among the highest of visitors from any country in the world. As a result, visitors from Switzerland are an attractive target group for Berlin’s luxury segment. Here too, as in other markets in 2016, a certain market stagnation was evident in the figures for overnight stays. However, after the rapid growth over the last years, such a saturation effect is quite normal.
In January, we were in Zurich to present Berlin to an interested audience of visitors and exhibitors at the FESPO, Switzerland’s largest holiday fair. The year’s activities also ended in Zurich, with visitBerlin opening a Pop-up Store and Pop-up Club in a top location in the inner city from 5 – 18 December. To mark the opening of this event, we held a press conference in Zurich and organised a Press Trade Event. During the year, we once again cooperated with Railtour-Frantour, the leading Swiss rail tour operator. In addition to series of other marketing activities, a ten-second video was shown in late November on 574 screens in a total of 320 public transport vehicles in Berne, Basel and Zurich advertising the Pop-up Store in Zurich.