Nation's emphasis on winter sports has increased travel to Switzerland

Swiss ambassador says Chinese tourism has reached historical highs in central European nation.

From handmade mechanical watches to mouth watering cheese fondue, from world-class chocolate to the chilling breeze coming down from the ice tip of the mountain Alps, Switzerland has become a more popular destination for Chinese tourists looking for a quality holiday.

Bernardino Regazzoni, Swiss ambassador to China, said the number of Chinese tourists visiting Switzerland has topped a historical high. Chinese visitors now account for 1.73 million nights in Switzerland, an increase of 6 percent from 2017.

At the same time, more Chinese guests visiting Switzerland are choosing to travel by themselves without signing up for a tourist group. That trend is making custom tours more popular, Regazzoni added.

Winter travel in particular has seen a big boost. According to Switzerland Tourism, from November 2017 to April 2018, Chinese tourists stayed in Switzerland for more than 530,000 nights, an increase of 8.4 percent over the same period last year. As a home to world-class snow resorts and the top skiing sites, mountainous accommodation in Switzerland accounted for 56 percent of the total nights Chinese tourists made in that period.

According to research from ClubMed, a luxury holiday resort brand, and TripAdvisor, one of the world's largest travel sites, Chinese demand in the snow sport market has been booming. It's led by the country's call to encourage 300 million people to participate in snow sports by 2022.