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Impact of rising Swiss franc on inbound market “too early to tell”

After The PIE News revealed last month that an uncapping of the Swiss franc from the euro is becoming financially troubling for education agencies in Switzerland sending students overseas, there is concern that the currency fluctuation could affect the inbound market – but agents and providers both say it’s too early to tell.

Photo: Marcel

"I think it’s too early to write off the season"

The impact of soaring exchange rates could be felt most in markets where local currencies are also dropping, particularly Russia.

Last December, the Russian rouble crashed against other currencies, causing a decline in the number of outbound Russian students. With Switzerland already an expensive option, some agencies are seeing less interest from students to study there.

“I would say there are roughly 50% less enquiries to Switzerland, maybe less”

“I would say there are roughly 50% less enquiries to Switzerland, maybe less,” said Sergey Alyoshin, director of Petro-Lingua in Russia. “Summer courses, because they’re short term courses, are not quite so difficult for Russians to buy. For a long term course, we have a lot less bookings, yes.”

“With the effects of the Russian rouble, we are seeing less requests, less registrations, less interest, and from what I’ve heard from most of the agents is that people won’t travel as much this summer,” he told The PIE News. “They will mostly choose to stay in Russia and go to different places for summer camps or for tourism.”

Meanwhile, Walter Denz, owner and co-founder of language centre and agency Liden & Denz said the fallout hasn’t been as bad as he had expected.

“People don’t like it when the currency fluctuates because then it’s very hard to make plans,” he told The PIE News, but added: “Still, I think the junior market which is very important for us is probably suffering less now than we originally thought.”

“I think it’s too early to write off the season.”

However, some language and summer schools said they were seeing fewer international students choosing Switzerland as their study destination even before the currency cap was removed.

“I think there has been a small decrease over the years,” said Jérémie Valiton, director of Swiss Language Club in Montreux.

Speaking to The PIE News, he added: “Let’s say you are from Spain and you want to go to a French language camp, you can pay in euros and go that way. If you have to go to Switzerland, it is much more expensive. All the activities are more expensive, all the salaries are more expensive, and we cannot compete in terms of prices.”

“Let’s say you are from Spain and you want to go to a French language camp, you can pay in euros. If you have to go to Switzerland, it is much more expensive”

Despite these factors, Valiton added that “It’s difficult to say at the moment exactly if it will have a big impact or not”.

Switzerland is renowned for hospitality, culinary, hotel management and finishing schools, providing some of the world’s leading institutions in these disciplines. However, Alyoshin said that interest in these institutions in Russia is waning.

“We have less enquiries for hotel management schools because they’re quite expensive and the cost of education is quite high now for Russian families,” he said. “The fashion for hotel management I’m afraid has passed in Russia.”

However, Les Roches International School of Hotel Management in Crans-Montana, which enrols almost 2,000 students from 90 countries, has “not seen yet any impact” on application numbers, according to Alexia Robinet, its senior international PR manager.

Robinet nevertheless conceded: “We are conscious that the strong currency increase may generate financial constraints on some of our existing and prospective students.”

Meanwhile, Christophe Clivaz, Founder of Swiss Learning, expects that the Swiss reputation for excellence will endure. “It’s difficult to say what’s going to happen in the near future,” he told The PIE News. “What we have to do is explain the difference to the parents and to show the world that there’s nowhere else like Switzerland.”

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