In Geneva, Chinese tourists are expected … with patience – rts.ch

In 2018 but also in January 2020, Geneva Tourism chose China for its major promotional campaign. More than two and a half years later, Chinese tourists have still not returned to the City of Calvin. In question, the anti-Covid measures still in force in China.

The tourism sector will have been one of the most quickly affected by the coronavirus years. In Geneva, the company Hao Feng Cie SA, specializing in import-export but also in the organization of trips for Chinese tourists, was forced at the end of 2020 to close its premises on Rue Pradier.

Its director, Hong Jie, who continues this activity from time to time, has converted to catering, where she now has a more stable clientele: “Most of my clients are locals. Of course, I still have Chinese, but it’s more students or parents who come to visit their child. Currently, travelers from China are still a very small minority,” she says.

“We have cut all our investments”

As for Geneva Tourism and Conventions, after still difficult months of January and February, we recovered in the first half of 2022. The number of overnight stays gradually approached the figures for 2019 until it was at the July only 2% lower than 3 years ago.

But on the Chinese market, no thinning on the horizon. Over the first 6 months of the year, Geneva only recorded 8,500 overnight stays by Chinese tourists, i.e. 6 times less than in 2019. A situation that prompted the foundation to take a radical decision.

“During the pandemic, we had budget cuts. We went from 18 million to around 8 million. Of course, we had to make choices and we cut all investments in the Chinese market”, explains its director Adrien Genier to the RTS.

Adrien Genier, director of the Geneva Tourism and Conventions Foundation. [Tristan Hertig – RTS]

And to add: “On the other hand, we continued to be active on social networks, Wechat, Weibo, Douyin (ed. the Chinese TikTok) and we have a manager of the Chinese market who we wanted to keep and who was able to to get involved in the meantime in other markets (…) we have therefore above all maintained contact”.

Geneva Tourism had to cut all its investments in the Chinese market, but it remained active on social networks, like here, on Weibo. [RTS – Weibo/Genève Tourisme]

Just over 3% market share

Before the start of the pandemic, Geneva was the fourth most visited Swiss city by Chinese travelers, after Lucerne, Interlaken and Zurich: tourists who nevertheless only represented a little more than 3% of overnight stays over a year.

A figure that may seem insignificant when this market was often referred to as an “eldorado”. For Adrien Genier, however, this term is not usurped, as the potential for development is great. “It was a little over 3%, but it was a strongly developing market (…) a market which is still huge. Huge in terms of population, with people who often have purchasing power quite high. So no, this term is not usurped, I think that the potential is still there and that the Chinese clientele will come back when the borders reopen”, he explains.

No crisis in the luxury market

The absence of Chinese tourists could also have had an impact on the city’s businesses, especially the luxury boutiques. The Chinese are indeed among the biggest spenders, with an average of 330 francs per day and per person, just behind travelers from the Gulf.

Contacted, Genève Commerce was unable to obtain enough feedback from its members to give precise figures, but here too, the impact seems limited.

The fact that the Chinese only represented a little more than 3% of overnight stays is undoubtedly one of the explanatory elements, but not the only one. Before the pandemic, large Chinese tourist groups preferred Lucerne or Interlaken for this kind of expense. “There, everything is done for that. The shops are centralized and there is also more space for buses. It is therefore easier to organize a shopping moment”, details Yiwan Zhang, a former tourist guide now converted into the banking sector.

Chinese tourists in Lucerne. [Alain Arnaud – RTS]

An analysis shared by Adrien Genier: “In Geneva, our target is not these large groups by coach, who often stay on the other side of the border and who only spend a few hours here to leave. in Lucerne or Interlaken. What interests us is rather Chinese tourists who have already been to Switzerland and who come back for a longer stay. In general, it is families or small groups who come with higher means and who will not hesitate to spend more time here. Two, three, even four days”.

In the end, Geneva can afford to wait for the return of Chinese tourists. The impact is undoubtedly stronger in cities like Lucerne, where overnight stays from the Middle Kingdom represented more than 10% of the total before the pandemic.

However, the tourism sector as a whole still has to face other challenges. Inflation, continuous rise in the franc against the euro or even an announced energy shortage.

Tristan Duke