TORONTO — Switzerland Tourism’s Evelyn Lafone has taken up her position as Market Manager, Canada and will be responsible for the entire marketing of Switzerland Tourism in Canada and for travel trade relations in the Midwestern U.S.

She succeeds Mirko Capodanno, (who was appointed District Manager Western U.S. in L.A. earlier this year) and arrives in Canada from Sydney where she was Market Manager Australia & New Zealand for the past four years. She also worked in London for five years as Market Manager UK & Ireland.

Switzerland is seeing more Canadian arrivals than ever before. Since 2005, visitor figures from Canada are up 30%. Year to date, 2014 is also showing a gain of 1.5% so far in overnight spend.

Canada produces some 100,000 arrivals and 230,000 overnights at Swiss hotels per year. “We’re excited about the continued growth of the number of Canadian travellers to Switzerland. Canadians love Switzerland, and Switzerland loves Canada,” says Alex Herrmann, director, Americas for Switzerland Tourism.

Herrmann added that with Lafone’s arrival, “we wanted to send you one of our best, and we did.”

Switzerland is all about 150th anniversary celebrations these days. In 2013 it celebrated the 150th anniversary of its first organized tour by developing a Grand Tour of Switzerland with a 1,600 kilometre journey (‘1,000 Miles of Switzerland’) criss-crossing the country. This year the landmark was the 150th anniversary of winter tourism. And in 2015 Switzerland will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the first group to climb the Matterhorn.