Arab visitors flock to “safe” Geneva


Geneva, long a favourite playground of wealthy Arabs, is about to witness a huge increase in visitors from the Gulf region as a result of September 11.


“There is a significant concentration of Arab clients this year, especially from Saudi Arabia. We expect August and September to be booming,” says Eric Kuhne, head of the Geneva Hoteliers Association.

Arab tourism to Geneva is traditionally concentrated into the summer months. At its height, during the city’s annual festival in August, it attracts as many as 10,000 visitors from the Gulf states at once.

“I expect there to be a 100 per cent increase this year,” Kuhne, general manager of the Noga-Hilton, one of the favourite hotels for Arab visitors, told swissinfo.

One factor behind this staggering rise has been the unexpected arrival of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, making his first visit in more than 20 years to what was always one of his favourite destinations. But there is little doubt that the events of September 11 and their aftermath have influenced the holiday plans of many people from the Gulf.

“The United States has effectively been banned for 2002 with regard to tourism,” Kuhne says.



Stable Switzerland

The city’s tourist officials were aware of the reticence of many Muslims about travelling to the United States and Britain in the wake of the attacks in New York and Washington and conducted an aggressive marketing campaign in the Gulf region in the spring.

“The Gulf region is an important market for us. Every year we do a promotion tour there, but this year, we have intensified our efforts,” says head of marketing, Beat Dreyer.

“We knew that people in this region were looking for alternative destinations, so we’ve been stressing how safe, stable and welcoming Switzerland is, that nothing has changed here, even after the events of last September,” he told swissinfo.



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