Tour group blames coronavirus for 70 Swiss job cuts
The Swiss travel and tourism sector has been hard hit by the effects of the coronavirus crisis.
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German tour operator TUI is to close eight of its 62 branches in Switzerland with the loss of around 70 jobs, owing to the effects of the coronavirus crisis.
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“We are assuming we will organise around 70% fewer trips than originally planned this summer,” says TUI Switzerland’s managing director Philipp von Czapiewski in a press release on Wednesday.
The six Swiss branches in question, all in German-speaking Switzerland, will be closed by the end of September. According to the company, the resulting 70 job cuts will be implemented as far as possible through measures such as early retirements or reductions in working hours.
TUI Switzerland currently employs 468 people. Like other companies in the tourism sector, it has not been spared the effects of coronavirus confinement measures and border closures, which prevented people travelling abroad between mid-March and mid-June.
At the end of June, Swiss tour operator Hotelplan announced it was cutting around 430 jobs, including 170 in Switzerland. Media reports also said airport ground services and baggage handler Swissport was set to cut more than half of its workforce in Britain because of coronavirus.
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