Emmy Award goes to U.S. TV show featuring Switzerland!

The American television program "Travel Cafe" won an Emmy for a show about Switzerland. This is the first time that a program in the U.S. featuring Switzerland as a travel destination receives the coveted "TV Oscar". The show was produced in close cooperation with Switzerland Tourism and the Lake Geneva and Matterhorn region.
The TV program "Travel Cafe" won the 59th "Los Angeles Area Emmy Award" in the category "Best Entertainment Programming". Under the motto "Skiing in Switzerland is more than just skiing. It's a Lifestyle", the show's host, Chuck Henry, travels to Switzerland and visits Zermatt, Verbier, Martigny, Villars, Gryon, Leysin and Geneva. For the first time in history an Emmy went to a program focusing on Switzerland.

Esteemed TV award
The Emmy is to U.S. television what the Oscar is to the film industry. The award is presented annually by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. "Travel Cafe" has been presented with the 59th "Los Angeles Area Emmy" by the Los Angeles Area Awards Committee. The prize is designed for television programs that are primarily produced and broadcast in the Los Angeles area.

Millions of viewers
The half-hour "Travel Cafe" program is produced by Chuck Henry and Kristin Arntz. Every week, Chuck Henry portrayes attractions and specific features of a travel destination on television stations NBC 4 (Southern California region) and NBC 5 (Chicago). The travel show reaches six million viewers through NBC 4 and two million through NBC 5. Last year "Travel Cafe" additionally aired on the "Travel Channel", which is received throughout the United States and reaches 30 million viewers. The Lake Geneva and Matterhorn aerea (Geneva, Vaud and Valais) is not the first region in Switzerland to be introduced in "Travel Cafe". In 2002 Chuck Henry took the show already to this aerea during summer time, followed in 2003 by an episode about the Italian part of Switzerland ("Ticino: Switzerland's Italian Side") and in 2005 by a program featuring Lucerne ("Lucerne: the Essence of Switzerland"). All of these programs were co-produced with Switzerland Tourism and the respective regions.

Jürg Schmid, Director of Switzerland Tourism, comments: "It is a great achievement for a television program to receive an Emmy in the highly competitive U.S. market. We are delighted that "Travel Cafe" won the award with an episode about our country. To a certain extent, it also recognizes Switzerland as a vacation, travel and conference destination whose third largest foreign market is the USA."

Additional information on the Emmy Award:
http://emmys.tv

59th Los Angeles Area Emmy Award: http://emmys.tv/awards/laareaawards.php

The "Travel Café" show (Ski Switzerland) can be downloaded as a podcast from:
http://www.myswitzerland.com/en/multimedia/podcast/rss/movies.xml

Maja Gartmann
Coordinator, Media Relations

Switzerland Tourism, 501 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 607
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Phone 310-260-2421, Fax 310-260-2923
www.MySwitzerland.com

For information:1-877-794-8037
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