Successful Meetings - November 2009 - (Page 92)

SWITZERLAND > SWISS HIT Members of Great Britain’s team channel their inner-Bond SWISS ountains, cows, chocolate, and watches—that’s the image we had to counter six years ago,” says Barbra Albrecht, managing director of Switzerland Tourism. “Yes, we have the Geneva Motor Show and the Montreux Jazz Festival, we’re the home of the International Red Cross, the International Olympics Committee, and so on, but the meetings industry here was often considered boring, predictable, exclusive, and expensive.” But the industry still has an annual revenue of $616 million and 1.9 million overnight stays. “Well, what helps us is that we’re Europe in a nutshell,” Albrecht says. HIT I SM I November 2009 I SuccessfulMeetings.com THE FIFTH ANNUAL SWITZERLAND MEETING TROPHY PUTS THE COUNTRY’S ALLURE ON DISPLAY By David Block composed of distinct French, German, Italian, and Romansch lifestyles and thus are not coherent in a brand sense. Which is another reason for the comprehensive Swiss approach to fam trips. M “And we’re authentic. Go to the mountains and you’ll find people happily working their farms as they did hundreds of years ago. Americans adore those traditions.” Diaspora-less But that pervading happiness in a beautiful, benign, and well-ordered country is something of a peculiar disadvantage. Look around you. See any Swiss immigrants? Right. Who’d want to leave there? So there’s no Swiss Diaspora to promote their cultures abroad, like the Italians, French, Germans, and other more outward-lookers. And although the Swiss cultures may be rich, they’re Eventing One spectacular initiative is the annual Switzerland Meeting Trophy that, in its fifth year, included car rallying, pedalo racing, crossbow shooting, boulder chucking, horn blowing, James Bond emulating, wine tasting, and gourmet dining. All of that was wrapped up in a competition in August that saw MICE teams from nine countries clash in a brilliantly constructed visit. http://www.SuccessfulMeetings.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Successful Meetings - November 2009

Successful Meetings - November 2009
Contents
Editor's Letter
Spain Hosts MITM Euromed
Meetings Law
Incentive Insights
Management Matters
Mouth For Sale
Golf Meetings
Corporate Social Responsibility
Places + Spaces
International Roundup
Paris
Hong Kong
Scotland
Colombia
Mexico
London
Copenhagen
Switzerland
Las Vegas
Dallas
Boston
Bermuda

Successful Meetings - November 2009