A Swiss Farewell
Evelyn Lafone, outgoing Market Manager Canada for Switzerland Tourism, took a little inspiration from Dr. Seuss while addressing the crowd of travel industry personnel gathered for her send-off cocktail reception last night (Sept. 7) in Toronto.
“I’d like to say what Dr. Seuss said, don’t cry because it’s over, be happy because it happened, and that’s how I feel about Canada,” said Lafone, who is set to embark on a position with Switzerland Tourism in Stuttgart, Germany. “I’ll be sad leaving Canada — Canada was really good to me… I had an amazing time here, but I’m also excited about my new professional challenge.”
In town from New York, Alex Herrmann, Director North America for Switzerland Tourism, was on hand to raise a toast and reflect on Lafone’s achievements over the past three years.
“For us, Canada is a very important market. We are absolutely committed to the market… and it’s a market that’s often a little bit overlooked so Evelyn did a fabulous job in helping our colleagues at head office understand how important this market is and how important it is for us also to be here,” he said. “This year so far, the number of Canadian overnights in Switzerland is up 6.8% – so we’re really happy about that, and in July – and these numbers just came out two days ago – we had an increase compared to last year’s July of 16.3% of Canadian overnights so your last month here was the best in many, many years.”
Lafone, who joined the Canadian team in 2014, told PressToday she’ll miss many things about working in the Toronto office, which boasts a wonderful view of the city.
“I’ll miss the fact that I could really take a market like Canada and continue to build it up,” she added. “The Canadian market I really enjoyed that it is often under valued and it has a lot of potential to do a lot more.”
A new Market Manager for Switzerland Tourism in Canada will be announced soon.
Pictured (above) at the event are: Herrmann; Lafond and Ursula Beamish-Mader, Manager Media Relations North America Switzerland Tourism.
