A combination of the robust rebound of Switzerland’s tourism industry, as well as tighter airline restrictions on large volume group ticket allotment, has forced Asian incentive travel groups desiring the European destination to be more flexible with their event dates and locations.
The result is an opportunity for the Switzerland Convention & Incentive Bureau (SCIB) to spread incentive movements throughout the year, and to drive groups to lesser-known areas.
According to the country’s Federal Statistical Office, the Swiss hotel sector recorded 41.8 million overnight stays, a level never achieved before. It was an increase of 9.2 per cent over 2022. At the same time, domestic demand remained very high.
Barbra Albrecht, head of meetings & incentives worldwide and member of the Management Board with SCIB, said: “We had really, really good occupancy (inbound arrivals) in 2022 and 2023. Travellers from North America, South-east Asia and India were all able to travel again in 2022, and those markets really boomed for Switzerland. They came back in smaller groups, but still brought us very good business.”
Intense leisure demand stretched out accommodation and venue supply that business event groups also desired.
“Thankfully, incentive travel clients are quite flexible. They are ready to change dates instead of insisting on certain timings, and going to new places. That allowed us to spread groups out throughout the year. For instance, we had a lot of Indian incentives last November – that never happened before,” Albrecht told TTGmice.
“As for trying out new places, instead of always going to the same places like Interlaken, clients are happy to explore Bern and Basel. Switzerland is quite small and it doesn’t matter where you’re staying because you can be on a mountaintop in an hour and explore a top attraction in another city in the next hour.”
Albrecht emphasised Switzerland’s accessibility, made possible by the extensive network of the Swiss Travel System and the convenience of the Swiss Travel Pass, which covers land, sea and air via the Swiss Federal Railways, Lake Geneva boat cruise, panoramic GoldenPass Express and cable car rides to Glacier 3000.
Furthermore, the Swiss Travel System offers door-to-door express group luggage transfers for groups of 10 or more pax, with a maximum of 50 luggage items, travelling in the country by train, bus and boat.
SCIB has endeavoured to build public transport into its fam trips to demonstrate to event organisers the ease of moving groups from city to city in this manner. This also supports Switzerland’s sustainable living ethos, which Albrecht said many clients are drawn to.
When asked about the trend of smaller corporate incentive groups post-lockdown, Albrecht said it was due to budgets “remaining the same” but having to be spent on pricier airfares.
Dominique Oi, MICE manager South-east Asia with SCIB, added that it could also be due to tighter airline restrictions on the number of group tickets allotted for each agent.
“Large groups with more than 100 participants find themselves being split in two (on different flights), and the programme has to cater for staggered arrivals. As such, smaller groups are actually easier to manage now,” Oi reflected.
Both Albrecht and Oi expressed confidence in Asian markets contributing to even more corporate incentive travel movements in 2024 and in Asian top achievers unravelling even more exciting layers of the destination as they venture beyond popular locations.
Their confidence is partly due to Swiss International Air Lines’s new direct services to Seoul, launched May 7 this year.
SCIB was involved in 315 corporate incentive movements from Asia in 2023. This figure was likely just 10 per cent of the total events from Asia that were hosted in Switzerland, as many were handled solely by private organisations, opined Oi.
India and the collective South-east Asia region are among Switzerland’s top five performing markets for incentive travel. In 2023, Indonesia was South-east Asia’s top performer, followed by Thailand and Malaysia.
Oi said the the Philippines was a market to watch, as it has grown more than 30 per cent since SCIB opened its South-east Asian office in 2012. To grow the market further, SCIB is investing in in-market sales visits and destination education, such as airlines that Philippine groups can use for the best possible way to get to Switzerland, and the experiences available to top achievers.
