Marketing lessons: How to sell 'segregated service' as 'exclusive'

The news item about a Swiss company rolling out separate trains for noisy and supposedly litterbug Chinese tourists is a prime example of bad marketing. This railway service is being hauled out of the red by a Chinese rush; so churlishness over their hygiene or decibel levels should have been tempered with some legendary Swiss canniness. If at all the locals objected about the Chinese invasion, the same segregating exercise could have been packaged as a ‘special service’ for them. All they needed to do was add some Chinesestyle squatting toilets to the bogies of those separate trains, maybe even a dining car with familiar food and piped music, and the whole sequestering exercise could be passed off as red carpet treatment. Indeed, the flush Chinese tourists might even be persuaded to pay more for this quarantine, making it a double bonanza for xenophobic Swiss locals.

All nations with cultural friction caused by tourism fads should take a leaf from this book and divine ways to keep mismatched visitors and locals diplomatically disengaged without affecting tourism revenues. With a little adroit investment, it would be a win-win situation for all parties concerned. The Indian tourists who travel in groups with guides and even cooks would presumably not mind this special attention.