China-Switzerland Year of Tourism 2017

The Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first state visit of 2017 was to Switzerland. It was during this visit that he and the Swiss Federal President Doris Leuthard declared the China-Switzerland Year of Tourism. Now the year passed and we would like to share with you some facts of the Swiss-Chinese cooperation regarding tourism and the events that took place during the year.

Presently China is the fourth-most important foreign market for Swiss tourism, after the USA, the UK and Germany. For Chinese tourists Switzerland is one of the three most popular countries to visit in Europe, along with Italy and France.
The prevalent picture of Chinese tourists is that they come in huge groups and by bus, from which they get offloaded in front of tourist sites and shops, then onloaded again and driven to the next European destination. The statistics of Swiss Tourism show us that it is true that most Chinese come in groups of about 40 people and that they visit up to 15 countries in about 10 days.
However, nowadays a shift is taking place, tourists from the booming mega-cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong) show a tendency of coming in groups of 15 to 25 people or going on individual travels. Swiss Tourism expects that by 2019 40-50% of Chinese tourists will be FITs (Fully Independent Traveller). The younger generation has more travel experience and is more and more interested in local cultures, art and outdoor-activities, not only in shopping and visiting world-famous sites for snapshots.