1. SECO (secrétariat d’Etat à l’économie)
Innotour

2. General informations about SECO (Innotour)
It is directed by Marie- Gabrielle Ineichen-Fleisch
The headquarter is situated in Bern
Budget of Innotour: 20mio for , given by the government
No turnover is generated by Innotour, at it is a help for innovation in tourism

3. History & Development
SECO was created as an interface between politician, entreprises and social partnership. It helps ensurating a sustainable economical growth.
Innotour is a projected generated by SECO, which started in The aim of Innotour is to stimulate innovation, cooperation and profesionalism in swiss tourism. It tends to reduce burocraty and offer financal assistment to privates (PPP!)

4. Innotour: Organisation & Structure

5. Challenges faced by Innotour
Innotour has supported the following activities, which are part of the challenges faced now by the tourism industry:
Investment for improvment of the swiss international benchmarking (data sharing)
Investment for protection of the climate (global warming)
Investment to help developping summer activities (fight against the seasonality)

6. Linked/associated with
Directly linked with SECO, which is Switzerland overall economical control.
And they had of course many associations with the different privates they did help.

7. Importance and impact on the swiss tourism sector
Innotour has a direct impact on the devlopment of tourism, as it finances private organization’s projects.
It is a link between Public (government) and Private (organization), as in PPP. The privates find help to co-finance their projects.

8. Personnal opinion
We constate that SECO offers many opportunities for development and innovation in the swiss tourism sectors. It supports many privates with their ideas/projects, therefore it helps the swiss tourism to propose a more diversified offer.
Swiss tourism may need not only diversification, but also innovation to attract tourists during the off-season (summer). SECO, particulary Innotour works on these objectives, as well as on the managment of climate changes and the difficult benchmarking in tourism sector.