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"Around 80,000 visitors have spent nearly 2.5 lakh nights in Switzerland, according to the data for January-September this year," said Federico Sommaruga, country's tourism director for India, at the start of a country-wide roadshow in Mumbai.
According to Swiss tourism authorities, Indians spend an average 450 Swiss-Francs or Rs 16,000 per person per day on stay, food and shopping. This is one of the factors that has led to classification of India as a 'strategic market.'
"Indians may not stay in the five-star hotels but they spend a lot on shopping and sight-seeing," says Soni Abraham of Jungfrau Railways, an organisation that manages an entire adventure area having snow-fields, restaurants etc.
The area under Jungfrau Railways, one of the most visited by Indians, saw around 40,000 Indian visitors.
"While the over-all increase was 12 per cent, the number of Indian visitors was 20 per cent high. At present Indians make up the sixth largest group of visitors to our facility," Abraham says.
According to the members of the tourism delegation visiting their Indian partners, the Indian visitors are increasingly coming from newer areas of the country.
"They are staying longer. Whereas we used to have most tourists spending just one night at our place, in the last two-three years, more and more repeat travellers are coming with an interest in adventure sports and who spend two days or more at our facilities," says Abraham.
Indians are among the fastest growing 'source market' anywhere in the world for Switzerland. This has now prompted the government to concentrate its promotion activities in the country.
"Indians account for 24 per cent of the visitors from the 'emerging markets' which includes countries such as China, Russia and the Gulf nations," Sommaruga says, adding "We are going to spend nine per cent of our promotional budget on these countries though they account for a total of just 2 per cent of our current visitors."
