Swiss beauty spot to control Korean Netflix tourists

Tourists love taking photos on the Iseltwald pier, which wasimmortalised by the 'Crash Landing on You' series. © Keystone / Peter Klaunzer

A Swiss village that features in a popular South Korean Netflix series is imposing fees and traffic controls to avoid being over-run by tourists.

Last summer, the lakeside village of Iseltwald was brought to a standstill by an unexpected influx of fans of the Crash Landing on You series.

Tourists from Korea and other Asian destinations were drawn to a wooden pier on Lake Brienz – the centrepiece of a riveting romantic scene in the show.

Locals were unimpressed by the sheer number of people taking selfies, jamming up the traffic and then disappearing without spending much money.

Some 12 coaches packed with tourists were reportedly turning up every day at the small village in canton Bern, central Switzerland.

This year, the village will only allow in pre-booked coaches that pay for reserved parking spots and will impose a CHF5 ($5.60) selfie fee on tourists.

“One way or another, we’ll get the situation under control,” Iseltwald mayor Peter Rubi told Swiss public broadcaster SRF.  “We want to offer regular guests and new tourists a quality stay.”

The PostBus public transport service will introduce a special timetable with larger vehicles to cope with up to 2,000 anticipated guests per day during the peak season.

At weekends, the service will run up to 34 trips a day to ease the congestion on the village, which has a population of just over 400.