The Nuance Group takes marketing initiatives to China

Kevin Rozario

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The group is to target Chinese travellers travelling to Zürich airport

Ahead of the Swiss government's likely go-ahead of plans to inject cash into developing tourism from China, The Nuance Group is moving ahead with its own plans to familiarise Chinese travellers with its shopping facilities and brands at Zürich airport.

"We are looking forward to more Chinese customers," Nuance CEO Europe Carlo Bernasconi told RavenFox.com. "While they are not high spenders when it comes to hotels, they spend twice as much in retail as other tourists."

Switzerland was one of the first destinations that China accredited when it began to relax restrictions on travel and the Swiss government is expected to approve a SFr200m ($160m) programme to develop tourism from China to Switzerland this autumn.

The move would help Nuance's business at the airport. Following the collapse of Swissair, high-spending transfer passengers fell from 40% at the airport in 2001 to 28% today, so any increase in Chinese travellers to Switzerland - whose main gateway is Zürich - would be a boon.

"The problem is that we need better lines of communication with tourism offices in China. Once we have this, I think Switzerland, France and Italy will be the main European destinations for outbound Chinese," said Bernasconi.

The current customer profile at Zürich is predominantly Swiss travellers with 80% travelling to European destinations and 20% flying long-haul. Russians have emerged as a key nationality for retail while Asians account for just 8% of the profile.