Arab visitors flock to “safe” Geneva

Arab tourists have fallen for Geneva Keystone Archive

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.

Geneva Tourism says it will be unable to say until the end of the summer season whether there has been a significant increase in overnight stays by Arab clients.

The city has a relatively constant number of Arab visitors every year, and they are a welcome source of income, not only for the deluxe hotels in a period when there are few business visitors, but also for the shops.

Purchasing power

Although Arabs make up only five per cent of all tourists to the city – rising to some ten per cent in summer – they have a disproportionate amount of spending power. This year, then, could be a bonanza for the watch, jewellery and fashion shops of Geneva.

Many of the rich and powerful – including the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed – visit Geneva for several weeks every year, bringing with them an entourage of hundreds.

King Fahd, visiting the city for the first time since acceding to the throne, has his own palatial mansion, the Dawn Villa in the exclusive suburb of Collonge-Bellerive, in which he and many of his servants are staying.

Although huge, this white-marble complex cannot accommodate all of his entourage, and many of the Saudi officials and their families accompanying the monarch are staying in the city’s five-star hotels.

“King Fahd’s visit has given us lots of free publicity in the region,” Dreyer says.

Not only monarchs

The city’s tourism officials are not content with attracting only blue-blooded clients and their courtiers. Efforts are being made to attract ordinary Arabs who will stay in the three- and four-star hotels.

“We want people to see that Geneva is accessible to everyone, not only the rich,” Dreyer says, pointing out that a special package offers Gulf visitors a week in Switzerland from $399.

Seventy-five per cent of the Arab visitors to Switzerland stay in the Lake Geneva region – not only Geneva itself, but also Lausanne and Montreux. Many come for the annual Fêtes de Genève, Geneva’s summer festival with its extravagant fireworks displays.

Last year, there were some 45,000 overnight stays by Arab customers in the month of August alone.

Geneva became a playground for the Arabian Peninsula’s ruling elite in the 1950s and 60s. In the wake of the oil crises of the 1970s, their increasingly wealthy subjects followed in their footsteps. Geneva became a place of pilgrimage for those wanting to experience the lifestyle their rulers enjoyed.

Even if other destinations – like the French Riviera and the Costa del Sol – now rival Geneva, the Swiss city retains a special attraction for Gulf royals.

Not only is it a shopping and business capital, it is also politically neutral and safer and quieter than cities like London and Paris. Increasingly, they have also been coming to Switzerland for medical treatment.

by Roy Probert