This weekend, the heads of several European tourism boards gathered at the New York Times Travel Show to share their insights for 2013 at a session moderated by Europe Express’ Kier Matthews. Alex Herrmann, Director Americas, Switzerland Tourism; Anne-Laure Tuncer, Director USA at Atout France (French Tourism Development Agency); Ricarda Lindner, Regional Manager The Americas, Director of the Foreign Representatives Office USA, German National Tourist Office; and Karen Clarkson, Vice President North America, VisitBritain all spoke at the session entitled “Travel Trends, Statistics, And What's New At The Most Visited Destinations In Europe.”
Matthews said afterwards, the overall outlook was decidedly positive. “Everybody was up from 3 percent to 4.5 percent in 2012 over 2011 for visitor numbers from the US,” he told Travel Agent Magazine. Looking ahead, all of the tourism boards are expecting 2013 to be up over 2012 by at least 2 or 3 percent.
Each country, he continued, each tourism board has their own challenges and ways of overcoming them. “VisitBritain and Atout France have concerted campaigns with their tour operator partners and their consumer marketing boards about secondary destinations within the countries,” he said. “They’re trying to say, ‘We’re not just Paris! We’re not just London!’ They’re trying to push the other destinations and talking about food experience in the south of France, or the French countryside.
The UK is focusing on culture and art and museums outside of London. And it has worked in both countries since they started last year. My question to them then was ‘What are you doing to encourage people to travel to other parts of country?’ This year, I asked how the initiatives helped. They all said that they saw visitor numbers increase in other areas. It’s obviously working and they’ll continue to do that.
Both VisitBritain and Atout France have major draws for this year, with Marseilles being a Capital of Culture and London getting Europe’s tallest building when the Shard opens this spring. “That’s big news,” Matthews added.
Germany and Switzerland, on the other hand, have had to struggle with the perception that, due to their stable economies, they are too expensive to visit. And each tourism board has found a way to combat that myth. “Alex talked about the value proposition—that anything good is worth paying for,” Matthews said. “Because Switzerland has some of the strictest standards in hotel star ratings—some of strictest in the world, in fact—you can go to Switzerland and stay in a three-star hotel and find it at four-star quality. It’s a great value because of great quality.”
Read more: New York Times Travel Show - Europe Looks Ahead to 2013 | Travel Agent Central
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