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The Federal Council relaxed the requirements for the list of risk countries. This is evident in the reservation behavior of those who wish to travel.
The Swiss longing for the sun, the beach and the sea remains intact despite the crisis in the Crown.
Photo: Gemunu Amarasinghe (AP)
Only with Hotelplan from mid-March round 100‘000 clients their trip thanks to the Crown-Kupload canceled. The consequences for the tour operator are devastating: sales in the last financial year (through the end of October) fell 65 percent. The company has sunk deep into the red.
“This is the worst result in the 85-year history of the company,” group chief Thomas Stirnimann said Tuesday. The Migros subsidiary did not provide precise information on the loss. The head of Hotelplan Switzerland, Tim Bachmann, spoke of “several annual benefits”.
Interest in exotic destinations is increasing
With this grim starting position, every ray of hope is welcome. The behavior of customers is such. Hotelplan determines that long-distance bookings have increased slightly again. The most popular holiday destinations among customers are currently the Canary Islands, Maldives and Costa Rica.
Competitor DER Touristik Schweiz, owned by Kuoni and Helvetic Tours, is also seeing increased interest from customers in far-away travel destinations.in. “There is a slight trend especially for trips to the Dominican Republic, Seychelles, the Canary Islands and destinations in the Red Sea,” says DER.
The reason is that on October 29, new rules for the list of risk countries came into force. Only countries that are more affected by the pandemic than Switzerland itself are now considered risk zones. This has resulted in the number of countries included in the list reduced from almost 60 to 4 it is.
Only travelers returning from Andorra, Armenia, Belgium and the Czech Republic should be automatically quarantined for ten days. However, the big question mark for the travel industry remains the high number of cases in Switzerland, which lead to restrictions against Swiss abroad.
Seychelles will tighten the rules for tourists from Switzerland starting next Monday. From this point on, Swiss citizens must be quarantined for six nights when they enter.
Clients book on short notice
The trend towards short-term reserves has accelerated. Compared to the fiscal year before Corona, Hotelplan has had the number of reservations that ain The day before the trip started, it increased by almost half.
Also he said Bachmann, head of Switzerland: “If one of our clients wants to book a trip to South Africa in March today, of course we will comply. However, we recommend that you book as early as possible. This allows for greater planning security.
At DER Touristik Schweiz we learn that customers book “very spontaneously”, but not before having informed themselves about possible imponderables, such as changing the entry rules. Therefore, personal conversation on the phone or directly in the travel agency is gaining importance.
