Swiss travel fund
| Swiss travel fund (Reka)
|
|
|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | cooperative |
| founding | 1939 |
| Seat |
Bern , Neuengasse 15 
|
| management | Roger Seifritz (Managing Director) Marcel Dietrich ( Chairman of the Board of Directors ) |
| Number of employees | 564 (2017) |
| sales | 611.7 million CHF (2017) |
| Branch | tourism |
| Website | www.reka.ch |
The Swiss Travel Fund (Reka) is the most important organization for social tourism in Switzerland. Those in the legal form of a cooperative nonprofit organization organized part of the non-hotel accommodation , is considered the leading lessor of apartments for families and the second-largest Swiss provider of apartments, camping accommodation and hotels at home and abroad.
Social conditions
Since the middle of the 19th century, the need for vacation as a break and necessary relaxation from work has also spread among the Swiss population. The movement for holidays in nature was part of the reform movements that arose around the turn of the century in the German-speaking area: nudism , Art Nouveau , naturopathy , reform pedagogy , vegetarianism and adult education centers . However, vacations were too expensive for the working population. In 1895 the tourist association Die Naturfreunde was founded in Vienna to enable workers to take a holiday. This idea led to the first Swiss Friends of Nature group in Zurich in 1905 and soon spread throughout Switzerland. The Migros founder Gottlieb Duttweiler began offering affordable holiday trips for the general public with his travel agency Hotelplan, which he founded in 1935, thereby helping Swiss tourism out of the crisis. Socio-political demands then helped the new understanding of holidays to break through in the middle of the 20th century.
founding
On June 22, 1939, the trade unions, together with the Tourist Association, founded the Swiss Travel Fund as a non-profit cooperative. Your task should be the promotion of social tourism, holiday financing by means of so-called Reka-Checks, the establishment and development of your own holiday villages and the brokerage of cheap holiday apartments. It set itself the goal of giving Swiss families with low incomes and single parents with their children affordable holidays. The cooperative's profits should be used for free or discounted vacation aid programs.
Activity and vacation assistance
The cooperative's activities are divided into commercial (Reka money and Reka holidays) and social areas. The social activity includes various holiday aid programs, which are cheaper at 14.2 million (as of 2017):
- The “Holidays for CHF 200” campaign was discounted at CHF 2.1 million per week. More than 1,000 low-income or single-parent families have benefited from it.
- Reka pays 8.4 million francs to make Reka money cheaper.
- 3.7 million flow into the fund for family holidays in order to be able to offer the holiday complexes to families at a lower price.
Every year 50,000 free vacation days are offered to over 1,000 low-income families.
The Reka Jubilee Foundation - which was established in 1989 - supports financially weak disabled people and spends around 140,000 francs annually on holidays in Switzerland, from which around 1,500 people can benefit every year.
For example, the Mama has priority offer (first in 1998) enabled 90 mothers to vacation with their children in 2000.
The Reka has its own holiday villages in the following 13 locations:
- Bernese Oberland: Hasliberg , Lenk
- Graubünden: Bergün , Disentis
- Eastern Switzerland: Urnäsch , Wildhaus SG
- Ticino: Albonago
- Valais: Blatten-Belalp , Zinal
- Western Switzerland: Montfaucon JU
- Central Switzerland: Morschach , Sörenberg
- Tuscany / Italy: Follonica
financing
The social activity is financed with profits from the commercial areas of the company (Reka-Checks and Reka-Holidays) as well as private donations. The Reka cooperative members - employers, employee associations, tourism, the transport industry and other circles - waive any profit distribution or interest on the cooperative capital. The profits of the nonprofit organization are used for the Reka holiday aid and for subsidizing the Reka holiday villages.
Key figures as of 2017:
- Sale of Reka Money: 611.7 million francs
- Reka holidays: net sales 38.9 million francs, overnight stays 900,664
- Net sales: CHF 85.6 million
- Gross profit: CHF 52.7 million
- Operating result: 2.1 million francs
- Annual result: 3.0 million francs
Publications
- Reka Season magazine
Economic importance
The additional hotel business, to which the Swiss travel fund belongs, is an important pillar in Swiss tourism. The Reka holiday villages bring long-term and sustainable tourism revenue for the local and regional economy in the Swiss mountain regions. With around 1,200 apartments, Reka achieves more than one million overnight stays in Switzerland every year.
Reka money
The Swiss Travel Fund offers its own means of payment, the so-called Reka money. Reka Money corresponds 1: 1 to the Swiss franc, but can be obtained at a discount (3% to 20%) so that the actual nominal value of the credit is higher than the amount spent to purchase Reka Money.
The following means of payment are currently available from the Swiss Travel Fund:
- Reka-Card (debit card)
- Reka checks
- Reka-Rail
- Reka lunch
Depending on the type, the means of payment are only accepted by certain industries (travel industry, transport companies, tourism in general, petrol stations, gastronomy) and certain acceptance points, as the acceptance points have to pay a redemption commission of 3%.
For example, Reka Money is made available to their employees at a reduced rate by companies; Reka-Check discounts of up to CHF 600 per year do not have to be declared in the salary statement and are therefore a tax-exempt fringe benefit for the employee; Even the employer does not have to pay any taxes or social security contributions on this benefit - compared to cash bonuses.
Awards
- Public Value Atlas for Switzerland: On September 24, 2017, the Center for Leadership and Values in Society at the University of St. Gallen published the third Public Value Atlas for Switzerland. The atlas ranks the common good of 106 Swiss organizations. As in 2015, Reka took 8th place.
- Solar Prize 2015: On the occasion of the Solar Prize Ceremony on September 29, 2015 in Palexpo Geneva, the Swiss Solar Agency (SAS) awarded the Reka holiday village Blatten-Belalp the renowned “Swiss Solar Prize”.
The Reka director from 1998 to 2011, Werner Bernet, was honored in 2004 for his life's work with the “Milestone”, the highest award in Swiss tourism. The award was also seen as recognition of the Reka’s commitment to social tourism.
See also
literature
- Swiss Travel Fund (ed.), Holidays for everyone - Vacances pour tous. Holiday book from the Swiss Travel Fund . A home vacation advisor. Bern 1939.
- Schweizer Reisekasse (Ed.), Das Ferienbuch der Schweiz , Bern 1966 and 1977.
- Reka children's book, Pipo, is that true?
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ History of the company on the homepage of www.reka.ch
- ↑ Reka holiday villages. In: reka.ch. Retrieved August 11, 2011 .
- ↑ reka annual report 2017
- ^ Reka money. In: reka.ch. Retrieved October 24, 2018 .
- ↑ Management. (No longer available online.) In: reka.ch. Archived from the original on January 22, 2012 ; Retrieved August 11, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
