Training travel agents through webinar
Switzerland Tourism has gone on an overdrive with a new webinar launched this September for the frontline staff. It will cover one destination every month.
Switzerland Tourism has reportedly achieved a 26 per cent increase in the first six months of this year with 3,47,056 overnights from January to June 2015. But it is not resting. Claudio Zemp, who joined the NTO as its new Director (India) from May 1, 2015, has revealed that it has launched a webinar for the frontline staff who haven’t had the opportunity to travel to Switzerland. Agents here are extremely motivated and hard-working and they come up with a lot of creative ideas.”
Having completed a four-city roadshow in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai and New Delhi in August, he will travel to Zermatt for the Switzerland Travel Mart from September 21-23, 2015 with 25 hosted Indian buyers.
His immediate plans include promoting winter tourism and self-drive options. “For the first time we had our India workshop in winter this year in Switzerland and the feedback was really good. Our trade partners loved our winter experience so we are going to put some packages together. We have also introduced our self- drive programme in Switzerland starting this sum- mer called the Grand Tour of Switzerland,” Zemp says.
Switzerland Tourism has announced the launch of its ‘In Love with Switzerland’ campaign for Mumbai to celebrate 150 years of winter tourism. This campaign is to promote tourism to Switzerland from India, not only during summer but also during autumn and winter. The winter campaign was launched in presence of tourism regions from Switzerland - St. Moritz, Davos Klosters, Rhaetian Railways and Ticino.
Apart from an increase in overnights, Switzerland also saw a rise in revenue for train tickets. “We have figures from our railways that indicate an increase of over 40 per cent in revenue for tickets bought mostly by individual travellers. Indians love train travel and we have therefore launched a super special offer on our passes. Our Swiss Passes will be valid for five days instead of four and our eight-day passes will be valid for an extra two days. Many of our tour operator partners have come up with amazing offers as well giving away free accommodation as well,” Zemp adds.
This is my first time working in India but I was welcomed by the trade from the start. Agents here are extremely motivated and hard-working and they come up with a lot of creative ideas