Schweiz Tourismus (ST) markets the travel, holidays and congress country of Switzerland in 34 international markets. ST has its own branches in 20 markets and is represented in 14 markets by clients [1]. Half the funding is provided by the government (CHF 35 million) and half by the 350 members (CHF 37 million). 85% of total expenditure flows into marketing. Each franc spent on marketing leads indirectly to a turnover of CHF 21.50 [2].

ST is one of the pioneering companies in Switzerland with respect to internet utilisation. It already started using electronic media in a goal-oriented way early on. The electronic networking of employees, partnes and members is such a strong feature of ST that comparable organisations both nationally or internationally are rare. The Portal Management & Internet Marketing Department was founded for this task. It has approximately eight employees.

The tragic events in autumn 2001 left their mark on the whole tourism industry in Switzerland. The attack on the World Trade Center in New York, the crash of a Crossair plane, the grounding of Swissair, the move of the WEF to New York, the assassination in Zug and the accident in the Gotthard Tunnel present big challenges for the tourism industry.

When Swissair collapsed, ST lost a strategic partner, which resulted in a dramatic reduction in its presence abroad. The promotion gap could only be closed thanks to special funds from the Government. At the end of 2001, the Swiss tourism industry posted a slight decline of 1% compared to the previous year (total of 34.6 million accommodation nights, guests from abroad -3.3%, domestic guests +2.1%). Although the year had started with a record winter for the Swiss hotel business, a low was reached towards the end of the year.

The accommodation nights from the key source countries (USA, Germany, France, Italy, UK, Japan, Netherlands) have fallen sharply, whereas domestic demand has increased. Meanwhile, growth rates of up to 15% are reported for the future markets of China, Russia, the Gulf states and India.


Fig. 1: Organisation structure of Schweiz Tourismus

The year 2002 was declared the year of mountains by the UN, which played into the hands of the people in charge of marketing at ST. ST is also a member of the Presence Switzerland Commission, the government office for the promotion of Switzerland abroad.

ST is subdivided into eight specialist areas, plus a department for Corporate Communications & Media (cf., Fig. 1). The managers of each department form the company management together with the director; this department and the department heads of the markets Asia, North America, future markets and orders are members of the extended management team.

ST sees itself in direct competition with other national organisations who are vying for the same customers in a keenly contested market.

Media utilisationWith the Portal Management & Internet Marketing Department, ST underlines the great importance of electronic media for the company. Especially the travel market can benefit from the new, interactive and database-supported information systems to a large extent. However, this will only succeed if the providers of tourism services are prepared to cooperate with each other and with ST.

As far back as 1993, ST tested a technical solution to offer end users information via mailbox. In 1994, a simplified version of an extranet already existed, which was above all used as a communication tool with the tourist boards. ST implemented its first web presence in 1995. This key data shows that the company was already gathering experiences at an early stage. In 2002, MySwitzerland.com was regarded as one of the leading tourism portals in the world. Further developments are being carried out at ST concerning the web application, although a network of trusted outsourcing partners exists, to whom special tasks are assigned.

The extranet/intranet (ST Net) is a protected part of the existing data network of ST. On the one hand, the communication between ST and its tourism partners is accelerated via this application pool. On the other hand, the same data network provides the MySwitzerland.com platform with information.

All tourism organisations in Switzerland (local, sub-reigonal and regional organisations), mountain railways, media, external editors and translation agencies and the members of ST have access to the ST Net.

ST is one of the first movers. The early commitment which ST made with respect to new technologies has had a decisive influence on the choice of technology. At that time, ST had not found any standard software which could satisfy the requirements of portal management. The current website is therefore based on a content management system (CMS), which ST developed itself.

E-Business is “business a usual“ at ST. Important elements are the tried and tested E-Business model with the web presence MySwitzerland.com and the electronic networking system which is exists internally and with all kinds of partner organisations (cf. Fig. 2). The networking model at ST makes it possible to use a one-off data input several times. On the one hand, data flows from the central archive into the website. On the other hand, the same data can be used in an application which is available to partners.

ST sees itself as a market leader when it comes to marketing Switzerland as a venue for travel, holidays and congresses. The web presence has become a platform for tourism providers. The carefully selected cooperations with national and international portals in the travel industry demonstrate the growing interest in the contents of ST.

A logical division between market approach and bookings has been achieved by outsourcing “electronic fulfilment” to Swiss Destination Marketing (SDM). The system is already being used by a few hoteliers as a primary reservation and booking tool. ST has therefore been instrumental in changing practices in the Swiss tourism industry.


Fig. 2: Networking system of the Schweiz Tourismus portal.

Today, around 2,000 hotels can be booked via MySwitzerland.com. In addition, information is available on 50,000 events, 75 travel and 1,000 top tips. A geographical information system GIS, snow reports from 250 locations, 40 panorama pictures, a web camera in a travelling locomotive, 150 descriptions of places and regions, 200 places of interest and a few multimedia productions are part of the comprehensive service offering of MySwitzerland.com. ST is meanwhile publishing the website in eleven languages. Individual national sites, such as the Japanese and Korean sites, have been developed locally and take into consideration the cultural backgrounds of these markets. Offers and news are integrated as and where appropriate.

Great importance is attached to cooperations. Information on providers is therefore integrated into the platform for free. Campaigns, on the other hand, are financed on the one hand by ST and on the other hand by the cooperation partners. The portal solution has proven its worth; ST receives enquiries about new cooperation possibilities every week.

In addition to responsibility for the web presence, the operation and maintenance of the extranet are also some of the tasks carried out by the Portal Management Department. This closed area is reserved for ST itself and partners in the industry. The ST Net serves to speed up the information processes between ST and the tourism partner organisations.

Structure: The Portal Management & Internet Marketing Department, which is headed by Thomas Winkler, operates like other sales channels, i.e. the department is responsible for the virtual market in the same way that another department processes, the Asia market, for example. Thomas Winkler is a member of the management of ST. Around CHF 1.2 million is available for the further development and operation of the MySwitzerland.com per year.

Portal Management & Internet Marketing is subdivided into the three departments Content Management & Data Organisation (CMD), Systems & Development and Web Promotion & Marketing (cf. Fig. 3).


Fig. 3: Portal Management & Internet Marketing

CMD is responsible for web publishing and data retention. Systems & Development constantly improves the technical infrastructure, which is based on ColdFusion and Oracle databases. Independent of the company’s IT department, which is located in the Finances & Corporate Services Department, Systems & Development operates the server facilities for MySwitzerland.com. Up until recently, the housing and hosting of the web application was based in the USA. The server facilities have been based in Switzerland since the summer of 2002.

The Web Promotion & Marketing Department is responsible for the optimum placement of the URL www.MySwitzerland.com in search engines and in general advertising communication. This department is also the creator of campaigns with an integral character, such as, for example, the “Schmusebänkli”, which was published as a print campaign in the “SonntagsBlick” and offers the panoramas of the most attractive “Schmusebänkli” (“benches to smooch on”) in Switzerland in the web.

The sales organisation SDM has been responsible for the commercial aspects of the web persence since January 1999, i.e. the sale of services (handling of hotel and travel bookings as a rule) is performed directly via the SDM system. ST is responsible for the contents and design of the website in cooperation with SDM.

With over twenty national and international web cooperations (Bluewin, SBB, Search.ch, Yahoo, Travelocity, T-Online, etc.), ST places its offers in market-specific distribution channels. ST pursues a very open cooperation strategy. The aim is to offer as wide a public as possible access to ST data.

The content for MySwitzerland.com comes from various sources:

• from the ST Net (industry data, extranet),
• from the SDM system,
• from self-prepared data and
• from the 450 input points in countries, regions and destinations.

Input from external representative offices (tourist boards, cantonal and regional tourism organisations) is fed directly into the CMS by ST.

Depending on the importance of an offer, a two-tier quality assurance check is carried out either at the level of the tourism region or at the level of the ST headquarters. Events of national or international interest are supported editorially directly in the head office in Zurich and released on the web. If smaller events of local importance are involved, the respective tourist board publishes the articles.

As a result of the years spent building up the system, ST has managed to integrate the majority of regions and destination in Switzerland to the technical infrastructure. As part of this endeavour, ST was also on occasions responsible for ensuring that tourists boards even had a PC and an internet connection and that staff received the necessary training.

Coordination: The Portal Management Department promotes awareness of E-Business and the internet amongst the executive staff of ST and encourages them to include the portal in their activities. The presence of the Portal Management Department in the management ensures that the internet strategy is regularly harmonised with corporate strategy.

In addition, annual meetings take place with the market departments: two days a year web strategy, one day for web content and one for web promotion. These coordination meetings are a regular feature of internet organisation at ST. In addition, a representative of the web team is always present at campaign meetings.

The Portal Management Department is responsible for managing projects. Here, for example, decisions taken regarding whether external partners are required. Responsibility for security and availability of applications is also one of the tasks of the Portal Management Department as well as the training of employees and partner organisations.

E-Business projects which result from a cooperation with other departments at ST are financed from the Portal Management budget and the specialist departments involved as a rule. The financing formula is negotiated according to project volume and importance. A far as the user-friendliness of the website is concerned, a project is in progress at the time of this case study which is being jointly carried out and financed by the Market Research Department, the market Germany, the product mountains and the Portal Management Department (usability project).

The screen design originated from a cooperation with an external web and design company from the USA, and the pictorial material from ST.

ST has maintained a web presence since 1995, which has been radically overhauled on several occasions and further developed over the last six years. The statistics of www.MySwitzerland.com report half a million visitors each month. They come from the following countries:

• 26% from Switzerland,
• 20% from Germany,
• 19% from the USA,
• 6.5% from the United Kingdom,
• 5.9% from Holland,
• 3.3% from France and
• 3.6% from Italy.

In the course of 2001, web visitors downloaded an average of 11,800 brochures a month as PDF files.

The development of visitor figures on MySwitzerland.com, the number of clicks on specific hyperlinks or pictures, the duration of visits and the number of bookings are carefully observed by the Portal Management Department, in order to continually optimise the products on offer. Between October 2000 (192,000 visitors) and February 2002 (600,000 visitors), the ST website posted a growth of 300%. On average one visit lasted nine minutes.

The editorial possibilities of ST massively reduce the times for preparing services. The optimum utilisation of the content management systems for recording data on a decentralised basis guarantees that the information contents of MySwitzerland.com are up-to-date.

Owing to the high visitor figures, the ST website has meanwhile become a good advertising vehicle. Thomas Winkler utilises this aspect and successfully sells advertising space for banners to tourism providers. Revenue from the sale of advertising space has become an important source of income for internet marketing.

Although the information contents of MySwitzerland.com are considerable, user navigation could be improved even further. The decentralised organisation is well supported by the existing information system, although the important thing now is to implement the necessary customer view on the web. To do this, all participants must have the same understanding for customers of MySwitzerland.com. This represents one of the challenges facing the company over the next few months.

Operability is also affected by technical problems. A large number of details in the functionality of the site fall victim to time pressure. Portal Management has its work cut out to combine all the various interests under one roof.

The organisational challenge is ultimately to simplify the necessary coordination. The current organisation structure means that a great deal of coordination is required between the departments.

ST is one of the pioneers in Switzerland when it comes to internet utilisation. The Portal Management Department has grasped how to develop a virtual organisation through persistance and perseverance, to reduce processes and costs for preparing services and to offer the customer a comprehensive information and booking system as an end product.

There are several coordination and strategy committees which regularly ensure that the specialist departments and those in charge of E-Business can coordinate their needs and possibilities. The majority of E-Business activities are financed via the budget of Portal Management. The market and product departments only help with funding in isolated cases. Support services, such as, e.g., translations are on the other hand often financed jointly by the print and online department.

To sum up, the E-Business activities of ST can be seen as a successful example of how electronic media can be utilised meaningfully, in order to link up all kinds of elements in the value-added chain. ST has probably been instrumental in bringing about permanent changes in the Swiss travel industry. Through the use of the internet, the marketing structure and business relations have changed. As marketing in tourism is a very information and coordination-intensive activity, the internet is an ideal tool.



[1] This case study has been prepared in the course of several interview and workshops with Schweiz Tourismus.

[2] cf. Schweiz Tourismus Annual Report 2001, p. 11.