Uncertainty for employees at Tourist Board

It was only earlier this month that the managing director of the Zug Tourist Board, Nicolas Ludin, announced he had decided to leave after only one year in the job. Now it has been revealed the organisation is having financial problems, which could lead to some staff losing their jobs.

Ludin’s departure was related to a failed project launched by the board to make Zug “a classical pre-alpine tourist destination” by 2025, targeting primarily individual tourists, Swiss and foreign, as opposed to groups. “What we wanted to do was to put Zug on the list of places people wanted to visit when they came to Switzerland,” said Heini Schmidt, the chairman of the board. He went on to say how preparations for this strategy had already incurred additional costs of CHF 100,000, with extra staff having been engaged and projects agreed with partners which had to be fulfilled.

Unfortunately, the hoped-for income did not materialise. “We had expected contributions from partners to bring in CHF 20,000 each, but this turned out to be only CHF 10,000. What we also underestimated was how many of them had committed themselves to sponsoring in connection with the National Swiss Wrestling Tournament and Alpine Festival, a huge event which is to take place in Zug next year. In addition to all this, cutbacks on the part of the canton have led to an CHF 80,000 reduction in income.”

At present, the essential thing for the board is to get its finances under control. “We are doing our best to ensure that we can hold on to the additional staff we engaged, though we will not know if we can do this until the middle of next month. What is also clear is that we have to make savings of some CHF 100,000.”

When asked what he thought of this project to lure individual tourists to the canton, Urs Wagenseil, the head of the Tourist Competence Centre at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, said he thought this was hardly achievable as Zug was not sufficiently well known for its tourist attractions abroad, particularly in far-off countries. “Of course, Switzerland has places which lure people like magnets. But with the small budget that Zug has to promote tourism, such a strategy can only really achieve results after a period of ten years or so.”

On the other hand, Wagenseil was more positive when it came to luring visitors to Zug from within Switzerland, what with its beautiful lakes, historic Old Town, the Höllgrotten caves, the gently undulating hills around Menzingen and many other attractions.