Geneva’s French-language dailyTribune de Genève carries an article (10th October) reporting a motion before the Geneva Parliament to propose Geneva’s old city as a candidate for UNESCO’s World Heritage Listing.
Ecologist and municipal councillor, Georges Breguet saysIt is time to make known to others the ‘spirit of Geneva’ that is symbolised by the city’s unequalled openness to the world. Referring to the city’s links with Calvin, Rousseau and Henri Dunant, Georges Breguet continues At a few hundred yards from where we are sitting, we find traces of people who had a considerable effect on world history.
Odd contrast
Geneva’s renown in the world for its position in the high tech world sits in interesting complementarity to the undoubted beauty of the old city. Today Geneva is a popular tourist spot in its own right and also the centre of one of the most important centres of tourism in Europe. The Franco-Swiss region surrounding Geneva includes exceptional facilities for practising all kinds of sports as it includes mountains, lakes and rolling countryside.
Business tourism
More important than vacationing tourism to the city is the business tourism centered on Geneva. Whilst ‘tourism’ may seem an inappropriate term for serious business meetings, in fact many of the requirements of business visitor and sightseeing tourist coincide. Essentially these requirements may be summed up, quite simply, as being somewhere to meet, somewhere to stay, somewhere to eat and somewhere to relax.
- With more than 200 meeting halls, including some which can receive up to 10’000 people, Geneva hosts hundreds of conferences and exhibitions every year.
- With over 130 hotels and 8'000 rooms, Geneva offers even the most demanding guests the exceptional quality and service for which Switzerland is justly renowned worldwide.
- As a very cosmopolitan city, Geneva has more than 1'100 restaurants and offers an extremely vast and varied range of ‘cuisine’ from all over the world.
- Geneva also provides a range of services and opportunities to help visitors relax both during the day and in the evening. This ranges from cultural attractions to night-clubs and casinos. There is also an incredible variety of sporting opportunities
As a traditional meeting place and trading crossroads for more than 2’000 years, Geneva takes its role as a global meeting place very seriously. Largely because of the critical mass of some 150 international governmental and non-governmental organisations, including the Office of the United Nations and nearly 200 multinational corporations, Geneva has had to develop an infrastructure capable of meeting the requirements for a global convention centre.
Visit:
Geneva Tourist Office: Link
Palexpo – Geneva’s exhibition and congress centre: Link
Ideal business location at the heart of Europe: Link
World-class infrastructure: Link
