With travel to Switzerland trending toward individual travel and away from mass tourism, Switzerland Tourism’s Alex Herrmann says that his organization strongly believes in the travel trade.
Herrmann made the remarks at Switzerland Travel Mart, which drew more than 400 buyers from 50 countries and 350 Swiss suppliers to Davos recently.
“That’s why we have a lot of programs for travel agents, why we visit you with our Swiss partners, and why we produce our Yodel sales manual,” which has been distributed in publications including Travel Agent’s sister magazine Luxury Travel Advisor.
“We have also launched a new e-learning program, mostly for travel advisors,” he says. With different modules to choose from, agents can “learn a lot about Switzerland in a short amount of time.”
“Some people choose a destination because it’s a bargain,” Switzerland Tourism Director Jürg Schmid told the Travel Mart audience. “That’s not Switzerland’s marketplace. More and more, people want to discover, learn, experience a country, its culture, its people. They’re looking for inspiration.”
That yearning for experiential travel is a countertrend to globalization, he added. “Slow tourism is the growth market of the future. This is precisely the market where tour operators and travel agents are needed more than ever.”
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