Switzerland Travel Experience Sizzles In Toronto

A delegation of Switzerland tourism professionals are in Canada this week as part of the Switzerland Travel Experience road show.

After a day of meeting with travel trade partners and tour operators in Toronto yesterday, Switzerland Tourism capped off the evening with an Apero-style networking reception featuring a live DJ on the 19th floor terrace of its Toronto office building.

The event also served as a chance for attendees to connect with Oliver Weibel, the new Director of Canada for Switzerland Tourism.

“We have 17 partners present here, it’s the first time we have so many, and new regions as well,” Weibel told PressToday. “We’re doing four events in total from Montreal to Vancouver. Each event has three chapters: travel agents, tour operators and then media. These events are magical — it’s a time to connect.”

Notably, Weibel shared that March figures from Canada to Switzerland saw an 8.1% increase over 2019 levels.

“It’s showing a positive trend in 2023,” he says. “The sales numbers from the hotels, from the tour operators are looking great.”

The destination will soon be even easier to get to for Albertans with new twice weekly Edelweiss flights from Calgary to Zurich launching this summer.

“We’re excited about the summer season of the flights with Edelweiss,” he shares.

Notably, Edelweiss already debuted four weekly flights from Vancouver to Zurich earlier this year. That’s in addition to up to five weekly flights Montreal to Zurich in summer and daily in winter with Swiss International Air Lines, as well as daily flight from Montreal to Geneva in summer with Air Canada, along with five weekly flights in winter, daily flights from Toronto to Zurich all year and three weekly flights from Vancouver to Zurich in summer.

The Switzerland Travel Experience group is en route to Calgary today, where a fun endeavour is planned ahead of the networking session, and will end the tour in Vancouver.

“We’re going to go horse back riding,” he says. “I’m really looking forward to that. I had the inspiration when driving through Alberta, which reminded me very much of Switzerland — just a little bit bigger. Beautiful mountains, beautiful lakes, wide forests.”