Snowball effect: Selling Alpine resorts to ambassadors

How can diplomats from foreign states become ambassadors for your country as well? In Wengen, the red carpet was rolled out for emissaries from dozens of nations. The mountain resort couldn’t have had a more captive audience.  “You can keep Alp cheese for four years,” Wengen’s tourism chief Rolf Wegmüller tells a group of foreign ambassadors at a local shop, pointing to cheeses which bear the names of the alpine pastures where they were made, as well as their age.  The small business in the village was one stop on the “Culinary Village Walk”, the most popular activity offered to the 104 emissaries and their partners on this day in mid-March.  Every other year, the Swiss foreign affairs ministry, at its expense, invites the entire diplomatic corps in Switzerland on a “Winter Day” outing. It’s a networking event and a chance for the representatives to get to know Swiss officials and staff better in an informal setting.  And it was a golden opportunity for Wengen - a resort best ...