Switzerland Today

Hello from Bern,

Here’s the latest news and stories from Switzerland in our holiday-week edition of our daily briefing.

Keystone / Laurent Gillieron

In the News: Omicron continues to spread, identity politics and a photographer dies. 

• Representing 55% of cases, the Omicron variant now accounts for the majority of Covid-19 infections in Switzerland. Canton Ticino, that borders Italy, is particularly affected, but the variant is also spreading rapidly to other cantons, public health officials announced on Tuesday. Omicron is spreading faster than the Delta variant with cases doubling every three to five days. Because of its high contagiousness, the new variant should soon account for almost all cases, health officials said in a press conference. The course of the infection, however, appears to be milder, but this may be due to some immunisation from vaccination, they added. 
• According to a survey, 99.6% of people in Switzerland see themselves clearly as a man or a woman. This leaves only 0.4% identify as non-binary. The reality is slightly more complex. Only 14% of men consider themselves exclusively male and only 6% of women exclusively female. And 12% of men and women perceive themselves as equally feminine and masculine. For 55% of the population, gender is considered “important” or “rather important” for their own identity, according to the study. It is more important to women with 60% admitting that gender shapes who they are, compared to only 49% of men. The survey published on Tuesday by the Sotomo research institute on behalf of the “Gender Fairer” initiative polled nearly 2,700 Swiss residents. 
• Sabine Weiss, a pioneer of post-war photography and one of the last members of the French Humanist school died on Tuesday at the age of 97. Like her contemporaries Doisneau, Boubat, Willy Ronis or Izis, Weiss immortalised the simple life of people. Her career took off in post-war Paris of the 1950s. She walked around the capital, often at night, with her husband, the American painter Hugh Weiss, to capture fleeting moments: workers in action, furtive kisses, comings and goings in the metro stations. She became a representative of the French Humanist photography school, a label she finally accepted, even if she found it simplistic. Weiss has featured in around 160 exhibitions around the world. Her most recent accolade was winning the Kering’s Women in Motion photography award for 2020.  

Asian tourists have deserted the Jungfrau region © Keystone / Peter Klaunzer

Rethinking tourism

Swiss ski resorts are not quite sure how to approach the new ski season. Le Temps External linktravelled to a mid-size resort in Canton Valais: Villars-sur-Ollons. If there were visible signs that business has picked up after a tepid 2020-2021 ski season, hotels are still registering 20% less tourists than during a regular Christmas holiday. 

One of the big differences with previous years is a recrudescence of Swiss skiers which now represent 80% of the total. They were 55% pre-Covid-19 pandemic. 

The same observation is visible in the Jungfrau region where the Eiger cable car was launched in 2020 to mainly cater to tourists from Asia. But unlike in Canton Valais, the NZZ External linkobserves that a Swiss clientele has not yet been able to fill the gap. Corridors in the cable car terminal remain eerily empty this Christmas, the paper reports. 

This could actually be a good thing according to André Wellig, the head of marketing for the Jungfrau region. He sees the pandemic as a starting point for a new kind of tourism, one more respectful of the environment. He wants the Jungfrau region to become something else than a one-night stop; a must do for the Asian tourists traveling through Europe. 

Urs Kessler disagrees. He is the instigator of the Eiger cable car, a feat of efficiency which will takes tourists to the Eiger Glacier in 15 minutes. 
He expects Chinese tourists back as soon as this Spring – oblivious of the fact that China has stopped renewing passports to avoid its population traveling overseas. 

Meanwhile tired of waiting for the return of foreigners, the tourism industry is adapting. Swiss German has become the norm once more in certain hotels and restaurants in Wengen. They have shifted their offer to cater to a more local clientele. Fixed menus are replaced with “à la carte” options and local wines by the glass are now more available on menus. 

Complaints on the habits of these “new” Swiss tourists already abound, including road traffic and pollution. 

The mayor of Lauterbrunnen, Martin Stäger, thinks he has the solution. He hopes Asian tourists will return: just in fewer numbers.