Those Chinese are buying a lot of Swiss army knifes, 380 CHF per day!

I lived in a town where for some years it was also a place to go to for the English since even including the airplane it was cheaper to slam 20 beers.

Those groups mostly came in summer, around 13:00 and all sober and white like milk, Just to leave around 22:00 completely drunk, shirt in the hand, shouting, screaming and red like a lobster :P

Often it all went well, but signing the wrong football song, or wearing the wrong football shirt was an easy way to get in trouble.

Eventually it calmed down since cities like Prague became more populair, (cheaper hotels, beer and hookers)

Same happened in Lugano a couple years ago, for the exact same reasons.

Tom

You can disagree with me that mass tourism doesn't have an impact, but please do not call me a racist. That is absolutely not true.

Bunch of jerks on this forum willing to jump & judge anyone who disagrees with them...I swear, take your anger out elsewhere.

Maybe also because small businesses cannot afford to match the rents that Victorinox and Heidi outlets are prepared to pay.

This is precisely why George Dubya Bush swore to go to war against international tourorism.

I was told a similar story years ago by my then GF from St Petersburg. Every Friday evening ferries would arrive from Finland (where alcohol was strictly controlled and expensive) full of Fins needing cheap vodka and girls.

It was established entertainment in the city to go to the ferry port on Sunday afternoons/evenings to see hordes of them being carried from police wagons and ambulances onto the ferries home. Many had no trousers (swapped their Levi's for more vodka and girls).

To be fair, the Chinese tourists could be a tad annoying. But it's a normal part of the growth phase, it was exactly the same just after communism when we, Eastern Europeans started travelling. Everything was nice, shiny, new and expensive. We looked weird to the locals, but gradually things went to normal. I literally just came back from a middle eastern country (for business) and the hotel was full of Chinese. I had to make the comment to a few of them at breakfast to stop touching every bagel, turning it around and then throwing back in the basket. Were they bad people? Certainly not. But there'a a bit of adjustment needed on both sides.
Don't worry Susie-Q - you'll be seeing more and more of them. By the millions

That brings back memories. I had a Finnish friend in my late teens, early 20s, who was a journalist for the Finnish equivalent of The Football Pink. Every time he travelled to Russia for a match, he took a suitcase full of Levis to sell there.

Also, there used to be Friday night ferries between Tallinn, Estonia and Helsinki that had a party at sea. OMG. It's still happening https://www.lonelyplanet.com/article...llinn-helsinki

Given their current situation I don’t think Heidi can afford to pay anything.

It is still the same in Prague, with Easyjet bringing the UK beer tourists. I got MD friends working in the "most expensive hotels", the part of ER wards dedicated to alcohol abuse. Hen parties are catching up, btw. Chinese tourists aren't difficult in CZ me think, but buying half of Prague might be.

I think Chinese tourists might not spend on local souvenirs nor food maybe because they apreciate to travel more instead of consuming more?

One problem with that though is that most of the money is spent on high-end watches and jewelry which doesn't really help the tourism sector.

No, they all go to Foxtown and buy Gucci and other luxury goods.

Tom

I thought Foxtown is famous for it's huge amount of Arab tourists (at least during summer season)

Anyway, glad to see that we've lowered the tensions a bit. And I agree with what was said before, first time tourists in a totally different area tend to act "weird" for locals, but it's not like locals don't profit heavily.

Blaming tourists for local stores to die out is just wrong. The "shopping streets" in Switzerland have become international ground quite some years ago, a lot longer than Chinese tourists could afford travel overseas in their current numbers.

It's always the gouvernment / city that makes rules. Lucerne makes tons of cash from tourism, as does Interlaken. Zürich had a rather large hotel crisis just some 20 years ago (empty hotels) - tourism (rather than business visitors) fixed it up in the last 10 years to such degrees now hotels are jumping up left and right.

You can't have the Foifer und s'Weggli! (or in English: Can't have the cake and eat it)

Well, the tourist stuff that is sold as "traditional local handcraft" is all the same, whether it is in Paris, Moscow, Prague, Amsterdam or Berlin. Barcelona, I forgot. Probably made for peanuts, all at one place. Yeah, that one. So. They earned their Guccis. I wouldn't blame the tourists but whatever enables them wreck facilities which aren't adjusted for the raising interest. Lacking infrastructure.

I don't know if the bus loads of tired travellers are worse than vomitting bachelors .

Lets see:
- sweeping statements of how all members of a nationality behave? Check.
- scapegoating foreigners for an entirely unreltated problem? Check.
- singling out one nationality compared to all tourists? Check.

Honestly: Your posts are very simply racist. You clearly dont like Chinese and stereotype them in the typical negative way. You dont offer any measurable facts, but only your opinion, personal observations including more prejudices and nothing else...

But lets keep this simple:
- small shops close in inner city locations all over Switzerland (actually the world over). None of the traditional ones left on Bahnhofstrasse in ZH, all international brands now. Thats a pity. the two most important reasons:

1. international brands can afford higher rents. They can even afford to lose money in some presitigious location and cross finance it with dozens of other shops. This would stop if we would all stop buying the crap from H&M or Primark.

2. Consumer behaviour. If the shops you are talking about were half as "beloved" as you said would they not go out of business. They dont do so for the Chinese tourists, they do so because of shopping malls and online shopping eating away their revenue. I love going to an old fashion Papeterie. But they can only survive if people not just buy that one nice pen every decade once as a present but all their evenlopes and printer paper there… people just dont do that anymore.

Well, to put it simple: tourism is changing and Indians and Chinese are now replacing the Arabs and Russians that used to be the scapegoats for people who think like you. All I can say is that there is by now a Chinese speaking employee in every shop of Bahnhofstrasse, so I very much doubt your stereotype that they are not leaving money in CH. The Swiss watch industry is relying on Asia by now.

Thats even more obvious if you go to any of the famous boutiques in Paris or Milano.

While some certainly shop for luxury goods (mostly Swiss made, thus there ARE Swiss/local jobs behind it), I can see literally all supermarkets in the touristic areas now having massive sortiments of not just chocolats but other Swiss products (Migros especially does a better job within Switzerland to boost their products to tourists when compared to their silly "Orange Garden" stunt in China) that are sold in bulk to tourists. Hotels do get their overnights - I know of three individual hotels there were close to going out of business due to "low season" issues. They pretty much saved themselves with "low season" offers for busloads of tourists. There are various segments of Chinese / general oversea tourists.

Plenty of Chinese now travelling individual, not only in those huge groups anymore. They stay longer and consume more locally. It's VERY similar to what happened with Korean/Japanese tourists, first big group, organized travel. After getting used to travel/enjoying it, coming back in smaller groups/families. With Smartphones and all kind of apps, travelling has become even more easy.

Tourism is a chance and a risk. But who will win? The person that does see everything as a risk, or that one that sees chances when they come up?

Laws need to be made to protect citizens (but those exist already!) from companies like AirBNB, and profits from tourism need to be used for the whole population.

SBB makes lots and lots of money from tourism (Guess why they don't like GA passengers as much as 5-day tourists?), as do mountain trains, restaurants, supermarkets, local builders, airports (10'000s of jobs alone!) etc. etc.

It's a big, big chain where it DOES trickle down. This isn't some silly tax cuts for the rich where only them profit. Tourism is the number one way to improve a country, especially when it's developing or having more poor areas. Thun, Interlaken, those used to be very backward places, no money, no honey.

Zermatt prior to tourism? The whole Kanton of Grischun? The trains were mostly built for tourism (not entirely, but it was a strong factor behind it)

Switzerland and tourism have worked hand-in-hand to develop the country, and I can't see it having ANYWHERE as much negative side effects as positive side effects are created from it.

And where are those watches and their components made? Somewhere up in Jura, Switzerland.

Also related, buying Italian luxury products supports well-payed jobs in Ticino. Supply chains work in mysterious ways https://ww.fashionnetwork.com/news/I...ds,286412.html

Cough, cough...

Well the Chinese own half of Switzerland. Thats the reason why the govt here refused to allow the owner of a property to be named. Its the same in Australia but far worse. They drive up the rents and property prices!