In Switzerland, sauna boat and yoga with goats to revive tourism

You’re not dreaming: to encourage travelers to come to Swiss this fall, the Alpine country’s tourism promotion body is launching a campaign around unusual activities centered on nature and well-being. On the menu: boat-sauna and yoga in the mountains with goats. The advertising campaign has just been launched in Switzerland and soon in neighboring countries, in Germanyin Austriain Italy as well as in France, a spokesperson for Switzerland Tourism told AFP on Thursday. It aims to support the tourist branch in the fall, a low season which represented only 17% of hotel nights in 2019, at the end of a summer season during which the sector experienced a clear upturn without however returning to its levels of pre-pandemic.

Read alsoPanoramic train tour of Switzerland: our guide to a slow journey

The campaign highlights the offer of spa and wellness in the middle of nature, including a sauna boat that sails on Lake Lucerne, near Lucerne, and a craft halfway between a boat and a bathtub that drifts on Lake Brienz, near Interlaken, which allows you to jump into icy water before getting back on board to find water at 38 degrees. It also highlights forest baths, yoga and hikes with goats in the canton of Graubünden or wine therapy on the terraces of Lavaux, whose vines are adorned with orange-red colors above Lake Geneva, with on the menu hot bath with a glass of Chasselas, massage and peeling of the skin with grape marc.

Attract the attention of international customers

The autumn season in Switzerland is dominated by local customers, on the lookout for hiking ideas. With travel restrictions during the pandemic, their weight has increased further, with Swiss clientele generating 4.1 million hotel nights in autumn 2021, up 29% compared to 2019. But Switzerland Tourism, l tourism promotion agency in Switzerland, intends to intensify its advertising campaign abroad to give a boost to the sector by capitalizing on the desire to travel in an attempt to increase the stays of foreign tourists before the summer season. winter during which European tourists flock to the slopes.

If major tourist destinations like France andSpain experienced a marked return of foreign tourists during the summer, Switzerland experienced an upturn during the summer but did not return to its pre-pandemic levels. In mid-August, Switzerland Tourism had made an initial assessment of the summer season, estimating that there was still a long way to go before returning to the figures for 2019. According to provisional figures from the Federal Statistical Office, hotel nights generated by foreign tourists were still 15% lower in July compared to their 2019 level. In the first half of the year, they were still almost a third lower than their pre-pandemic level.