Swiss tourism: aiming for top quality standards

A hotel in canton Obwalden this week became the 500th tourism outlet to pass the first stage of Switzerland's "Quality Label" award for high standards of service in the tourism branch.

The award was created three years ago by the Swiss federal tourism office in a bid to improve the quality of service in Switzerland’s vital tourism sector, a key engine of the Swiss economy.

“At first we created a quality charter but found that just signing up outlets to high standards was not enough. So we launched this quality offensive in November 1997,” spokesman Bruno Luethi told swissinfo.

To pass the first stage, staff from hotels, restaurants, tourism offices and winter sports schools attend a quality management course and are expected to draft an action plan tailoring the principles of quality management to the way their companies work.

They then document the plan and changes, and apply for the Quality Label stage one.

“We are quite pleased as we now have 500 firms which have passed the first stage. The second stage is much harder and involves more intensive quality management work and a visit from an anonymous examiner to check if standards really are high,” Luethi said.

Only about 130 firms have so far passed the second stage, and the tourist office is currently developing a third and final stage, Swiss tourism’s top award in excellence.

“Over 2,000 staff from different outlets have done our training courses for the first stage, but the problem is many don’t have the time to follow it up,” Luethi said.

swissinfo with agencies