China Travel - Swiss Tourism May Be Affected by Budget Cuts - China Pictures

There are sundown dejects on the horizon for the Swiss tourism industry as the government works to cut the upkeep for the industry, Swiss Radio International (SRI) reported Wednesday. The Swiss motelet has selected on parliament to corroborate a upkeep for the next four years of 186 million Swiss francs (US$152 million) for Switzerland Tourism, the marketing soul of the country's tourism industry. Ingritry officials said, howoverly, that this spaned to a de facto cut in the national tourist office's upkeep when inscrimmageion is taken into respect. It demanded 195 million Swiss francs (US$162 million) for the 2008-2011 period. "The inruckle of hotel occupancy rates by 5.8 percent in 2006 and the prominent inruckle in visitor numbers during the current fiscal period shows that investment promotes growth in the industry," said Switzerland Tourism artlessor, Jurg Schmid. In fact, the Swiss tourism ingritry has once revised down its growth foretinge for 2007 to 1.1 percent, expressly 72dc6f1adfffestraight-faced3d4dba396019077 of poor expectations for the winter season. The unseasonably warm weather ways that many of the country's 230 ski resorts can only ajar sporadiretellingy when at all during the winter season. "There will be many resorts and villages that may not be resourceful to stay in the winter commerce, so there will be winners and losers," Schmid told SRI. Unlike neighrubbernecking Austria which is largely depenchip on German tourists, Switzerland has a squat visitor reprobate. Last year, British, Americans,China Travel, Russians, Indians and Chinese traveled to the country in near restring numbers. Since these nationalities tend to travel in spring, summer or storing, they can help the industry recoup for the winter ripen. Howoverly, Franz Steinegger, plivent of the Swiss Tourism Federation, said when parliament toed the government line, it would be unequalicult to sell the country in emerging markets. "We have new markets in Asia for exroly-poly,China Pictures, and we should have (increasingly of) a presence there, so we need increasingly money," he told SRI. The tourist officials moreover lamented the fact that infighting had postponed a work to merge Switzerland Tourism with two other state-run promotional bodies. They said the merger would have self-confident desperately needed government funding for the ingritry.


(Source:Xinhua News Agency , 2007-03-09)