Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — In a step to attract more GCC tourists, a delegation of Switzerland Tourism and representatives of over 40 tourism destinations, companies, and famous Swiss hotels stopped in Jeddah on Monday as part of their GCC roadshow starting from February 6-12, 2016. The itinerary includes Jeddah, Riyadh, Dammam, Qassim, Bahrain, Doha, Muscat, Kuwait, Dubai, Al Ain, and Abu Dhabi. During the roadshow ‘Switzerland Travel Experience 2016', organized and hosted by Switzerland Tourism, the delegates meet with around 1,300 travel representatives and tourism agencies from the GCC and are giving insights into the new Switzerland experience: The Grand Tour of Switzerland. The workshops of the road show discuss ways of collaboration that help to increase the number of GCC tourists to Switzerland. To enable these prospects, the tourism agencies will be provided with comprehensive information and details on the tourist tours to Switzerland. Numerous tourist attractions will be promoted as well as services offered in the different regions and along the Grand Tour of Switzerland. At a press conference held at Rosewood Hotel here in Jeddah, Switzerland Tourism announced that Saudi Arabia holds the first position, followed by the United Arab Emirates. Overall, 316,669 of GCC tourists with 887,032 overnights have visited Switzerland during Jan-Nov 2015, resulting into an increase of 23.4% visitors versus 2014. Spending CHF 430 per day on average, the GCC visitors are first in terms of daily tourist expenditure worldwide. The persistent growth of the number of tourists coming from the GCC to Switzerland, raised the responsibility of Switzerland Tourism (ST) towards the Gulf tourism market. It reflects on the enhancement of its activities, within the states of GCC, via its regional office in Dubai, which has been carrying out its activities since 2003. The partners of Switzerland Tourism are aware of the importance of the Gulf tourism market and constantly provide renewed tourist offers. The main partners are: Geneva & Lake Geneva region, Gstaad, Interlaken, Bern, Lucerne, Zurich, St. Moritz, Ticino, Zermatt, Crans Montana, Swiss Travel Systems and Swiss International Airlines. To ensure high standards of pleasure for tourists, Switzerland Tourism has launched its online website www.MySwitzerland.com with more than 2,400 pages of Arabic content for information and easy reservations. Furthermore, ST communicates with the guests via their Arabic Facebook, Twitter and Instagram channels Facebook.com/myswitzerlandar and MySwitzerland.com/twitter. Instagram.com/myswitzerlandar The hashtag #InLovewithSwitzerland is already widely used, in the GCC as well.
