Why doesn’t Swiss Tourism use more social media platforms to promote its destinations and brands ?
A country renowned for its world-famous ski resorts (St-Moritz, Verbier, Villars, Crans-Montana, Zermatt), great lakeside cities (Zurich, Geneva, Lucerne) and chocolate should be far more active as it offers modern hospitality infrastructures and efficient public transport networks.
This is even more suprising knowing that some new companies base successfully their marketing strategies on new media. Such is for example the case of an innovation hotel chain based in the Netherlands called CitizenM which uses YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare to engage urban mobile consumers and promote its brand.
Is Swiss Tourism too cautious about social media ?
A professional approach is necessary.
Engaging consumers via new media is not as easy as some big companies like Nestlé are discovering. Managing a Facebook page, for example, isn’t just posting statuses and videos for friends but interacting with new followers. Developing communities on Twitter and Facebook require specific storytelling & conversation skills as consumers and companies can both engage conversations.
Why are New Media so important for Swiss Tourism Management ?
As a good friend was telling me recently, social media, geolocalization, augmented reality and GPS guided tours offer infinite possibilities to create events and promote destinations.
Just take example of the city of Basel that sends you a little pack of Baslerläckerli for your birthday if you checked in the Basel Train Station in the last year and are not living in Switzerland. Isn’t this a great way of associating emotions to a brand ? Isn’t this a great way of building loyalty ?
This example just shows the importance of new media and the strategic necessity to acquire the conversation 2.0 skills to remain competitive.
What do you think about tourism brands using new media to engage consumers ? Do you have any examples you would like to share ? I’d be glad to have your comments !
Eugène Schoen 
You’re making a very good point here! Social media in business is used around the world and becomes more mainstream even as we speak. The new way of marketing is conversation: customers are engaged in conversations and share ideas and thoughts about brands and services.
Why is it that in Switzerland this does not seem to take off like in other countries around us? The language is a great barrier in my opinion. When people exchange ideas they need to be comfortable in the language they write in. When you’re a French speaker, you do not easily engage in a written German conversation and vice versa.
Of course the language in many multinationals in Switzerland is English, but many of the local employees are not comfortable to write in English. I think that this might be a reason why a platform like Twitter is not as popular in Switzerland is, like it is in Austria, France, or Germany. And when you are not used to engage in social media yourself, you might not see the need or interest to use it for your business either. Too many people think it’s just for fun and haven’t yet seen the business opportunities of those platforms.
My answer might not really answer the question you ask, but I would be very interested to see what other people’s opinions are and whether they also think that language might play a role in the adoption of social media in Switzerland.
Best regards!
Dear Mr Eugène Schoen,
my name is Lorenzo Ghini, i’m actually working actively in the web communication and promotion of Ticino. Manage social profiles is not easy AT ALL. I agree, completely. New Media is an unexplored world that have his rules and needs continuos monitoring. This market is growing so fast, it’s impressive!
I suggest you ti have a look on the initiative of Social Media Basel. It might provide interesting input.. http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=196682724940&ref=ts
Good post. I learn something totally new and challenging on blogs I stumbleupon every day.
It’s always interesting to read content from other writers and practice a little something from other sites.