GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Fame has suddenly hit the Graubuenden hamlet of Obermutten and so far, it’s just what the townfolk wanted. Mayor M Wyss and G Flatscher, who owns the single restaurant, decided last year that the village, with all its typical Swiss mountain charm, should create a Facebook page that would increase visitors.
He made one firm promise, to post every visitor’s photo on the village notice board if they “liked” the page. Soon the notice board was covered, and as the buzz picked up speed, the village’s barn walls also began to be covered with the pictures.
The page now has more than 17,000 likes and the English version of a video showing the village has had nearly 44,000 views (the German version: 3,500). And tourism has picked up, reports tnooz, a travel industry web site. “The Obermutten page now has more fans than some of the most popular tourist traps in Europe and the regional Grabunden tourist board site has since its web traffic soar by 250%. But more importantly, at the height of the ‘campaign’ four out of five fans regularly interacted with page and each other – a figure its creators reckon is higher than pages belonging to Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Coca-Cola.”
Here’s the first video of 11 the village has posted on its page, and a more recent one, in English. You also get a peek at some ibex.
https://www.facebook.com/obermutten
