KAHINI CHAKRABORTY – Mumbai
With an aim to increase tourist arrivals in Switzerland, Rail Europe, Swiss Travel System and Switzerland Tourism have introduced Swiss Pass Promotion for the Indian market. This 2-for-1 promotion offer is valid from September 1, 2012 to October 31, 2012. It is valid on both the variants of Swiss Saver Pass – four days Swiss Pass and the four days in one month, Swiss Flexi Pass. Talking to Express TravelWorld on the reason for launching this product and how has the Indian tourist arrivals been so far to the country, Kunal Kothari, executive director, Rail Europe India said, “Switzerland has been a popular destination among Indians. Last year the travel trade sold around 2,500 passes and this year we are hoping to double that number to 5,000. The tourist arrivals from India last year saw an increase of 21 per cent from 2010 and this year from January to June 2012 it has been 12.3 per cent. The Swiss passes also grew by nearly 15 per cent (passenger numbers) from January-June 2012 over 2011. The India sales stood at over Euro 16 million in 2011.”
Elaborating on how the promotional offer will benefit the travel trade, Kothari added, “For every three 2-for-1 passes sold, agents will earn a gift voucher worth Rs 1,000. For every six 2-for-1 passes sold, they earn one nomination to the trip lucky draw, two nominations for 12 passes sold. While the grand prize will be a FAM trip for 10 winners selected from a mix of GSAs and retail travel agents, including partners of GSAs.” Apart from this, the tourism board is also going to aggressively promote Switzerland in the Indian market through B2B and B2C campaigns through print ads, video banners on websites, advertisements, etc.
Ritu Sharma, deputy director and media manager (India), Switzerland Tourism said, “We are happy to be a part of this promotion. Although we cannot divulge details on the investment set aside for the B2B and B2C campaigns, we hope to continue attracting more number of Indian tourists. We are also looking at promoting the autumn season with this special campaign.”
