The tiny fishing village of Iseltwald, Switzerland, is home to about 400 people. Located on the southern shore of Lake Brienz, it’s long been quiet and uneventful, rarely visited by outsiders — until a popular South Korean TV show put it on the map for global travellers, practically overnight.
Since September 2022, Iseltwald has been hosting huge numbers of Asian tourists, mostly from South Korea and Southeast Asia. The volume of day-trippers has become so intense — sometimes outnumbering locals — that the village launched a double-decker bus service this month to ferry them to the scenic spots they come to see.
That’s thanks to the K-drama Crash Landing on You, which Nielsen Korea ranks as South Korea’s fourth-most-viewed TV show in history. After it debuted in 2019, a steady international rollout on Netflix snowballed the show’s audience.
The show’s narrative is set in North Korea, where production was not possible; instead, many scenes were shot in Switzerland. A particularly pivotal scene takes place at Lake Brienz, whose turquoise waters, flanked by mountains, are now etched in viewers’ minds.
That scene — a crescendo in the main characters’ relationship that features actor Hyun-bin playing the piano on a pier — has driven such intense tourism that Google Maps now calls it “Crash Landing on You filming location”. It’s become such an icon of romance that visitors use it as a backdrop for proposals, weddings and engagement photos.
On a recent midweek visit, the bus between Interlaken and Iseltwald was filled with Asian tourists toting selfie sticks and tripods. On arrival, each must now pay five Swiss francs to go to the edge of the pier to take pictures.
The charge was imposed in May in hopes of curbing over-tourism. All proceeds go directly to the municipality of Interlaken to help cover infrastructure costs related to the influx of visitors.
Unlike the huge gains in tourism across Croatia that stemmed from zeal for Game of Thrones, or the spike in overnight stays at British countryside estates after Downton Abbey’s big run, TV tourism here stands to disrupt a pristine place and tiny community without bringing much economic benefit.
With only a few modest hotels and restaurants in the village, few are cashing in meaningfully. .
“Local people can feel a little overwhelmed by the situation, especially by this lake,” says Markus Berger, head of corporate communications at Switzerland Tourism. “It’s a small population, which normally has this beautiful place to themselves, and all of a sudden you have hundreds of tourists every day.”
Managing the numbers while finding ways to cash in on them will be vital to making this tourism wave more sustainable.
For now, momentum seems to be gaining. The new double-decker buses that started running from Bönigen to Iseltwald each transport up to 120 passengers, increasing capacity by 25%. Because parking is limited, buses must secure permits ahead of time.
The sole alternative transport, due to limited parking for cars, is by ferry; ticket sales to Iseltwald are already up 40% year on year, says operator BLS Schiffahrt.
“Some say this is just a boom that will end, but we will continue to bring people over to Lake Brienz even when the drama is over,” says Berger. “It would be a pity not to bring people to this beautiful place.”
— Bloomberg
