Swiss Tourist Resorts Ready For Ramadan
The many services compatible with Islamic customs reflect the importance of Arabs from the Persian Gulf states, the fastest-growing source of arrivals in Switzerland in absolute terms.
People from the Persian Gulf spent an additional 148,000 nights in Swiss hotels last year, making up almost singlehandedly for the 179,000 fewer German tourists, who still constitute the largest group of inbound visitors.
Once preferring to stay close to Geneva and other scenic locations on the Lake Geneva shore, Persian Gulf state residents have been booking into hotels in Zurich and Lucerne and tourist hot spots in the Bernese Alps like Interlaken.
These developments have in part been the result of efforts by the national marketing body, Switzerland Tourism, which established an office in Dubai in 2003. Besides organizing exhibitions and other events, the office caters to guests from the region through its Arabic language website and provides special family offers like free train tickets for children under 16.
Big spenders
The Swiss tourist industry is keen to keep Persian Gulf state visitors coming back since they are big spenders too – averaging more than CHF500 ($540) per person per day and staying longer (three nights) than the average, often in a luxury hotel.
With that goal in mind, the marketing office, in cooperation with the hotels association, has been hard at work ensuring they feel at home in Switzerland.
A booklet focusing on guests from the Persian Gulf contains important information about the countries of the region and their cultural and religious customs and traditions, as well as business ethics and instructions on how to treat Arab guests.
And to educate hotel staff, tourist offices have hosted workshops like this one.
Halal
Interlaken, where visitors from the Persian Gulf account for close to 10% of all nights in hotels, has been very active in this regard, providing a wide range of activities adapted to Arab guests, such as evening cruises with halal barbecues and tandem paragliding flights with female pilots accompanying female Arab tourists.
The four-star Hotel Metropole in Interlaken offers prayer mats with built-in compasses (to locate Mecca) for free, a prayer hall and a corner of Arab cuisine, according to the Metropole manager, Marco von Euw.
Von Euw says a partition is used in the hotel’s barbershop to separate men and women, and other special services include breakfast being offered from 3am during Ramadan, the month of fasting which begins this year on June 18.
For the past six years, the tourist office in Zurich has published a list of hotels that make special preparations for Ramadan and has schooled hotel personnel on various Ramadan customs. The number of nights spent by Persian Gulf tourists in Zurich increased by more than 150% in the period between 2005 and 2014.
At Zurich’s Dolder Grand, a Lebanese chef serves halal meat, with a selection of Lebanese dishes listed in the room service, a spokeswoman said.
Source: Swiss Info
