Ahmedabad

Sixty percent of the Indian tourists to Switzerland, one of the most favorite international tourist destination, are from Gujarat or of Gujarati origin, Director- India, Switzerland Tourism, Mr. Claudio Zemp said today.

The downward trend in the influx of Indian tourist to this beautiful European country in recent years has also seen a remarkable surge in the first half of calendar year 2015.

Addressing a press conference here to announce two campaigns aimed at wooing visitors from Gujarat in the autumn travel season, Mr. Claudio said that as per the traditional counting of tourists based on night stay in hotels in his country, the people of Gujarat or that of Gujarati origin make 60 percent of the total Indian influx.

‘Switzerland has witnessed a surge in the number of Indian tourists this year. Travelers from Gujarat also account for 90 percent of the nights spent in serviced apartments at about 2 lakh nights per year. We don’t count this kind of stay in our official data for tourists details otherwise the total official percentage of Gujarati tourists would have been more than 60 percent,’ he said.

India stands at number 10 in terms of number of tourist visiting the picturesque alpine country. Germany tops the list while UK and US are on second and third spots respectively.

Ms. Ritu Sharma, Deputy Director, Switzerland Tourism, said that the total tourist influx from India was 347056 during January to June this year and was up by 26.7 percent from the figures of the corresponding period last year. The flow was down in the recent years with the growth in 2013 reaching a negative figure of -0.8 percent.

She also elaborated about the two campaigns, a 1600 km road trip across the country The Grand Tour of Switzerland and the Grand Train Tour of the country.

DeshGujarat