More and more tourists glimpsing the Matterhorn from the air

The Matterhorn mountain in Zermatt, Switzerland is a major draw for tourists from all over the world. Literally iconic – its near-symmetrical pyramidal peak is reproduced on millions of Toblerone chocolate packets every year – it is perhaps the world's most beautiful and photographed mountain.

Groups of Chinese tourists have been flocking to Zermatt for many years for a glimpse of the Matterhorn – but in the past few years, their tastes have been changing. 

According to Switzerland Tourism, since the COVID-19 pandemic Chinese visitors have been looking for tailor-made and unique experiences instead of one-size-fits-all group activities. 

Many tourists from China choose to take a tandem paragliding flight to see the famous Matterhorn from the sky. The number of these extreme sports enthusiasts has been rising in recent years.

Guo Mu was born in the Jilin province in China and she is on a holiday to Switzerland with her husband. She is visiting Zermatt for the first time and has decided to do a tandem paragliding flight to get close to the Matterhorn. 

Mu tells CGTN that she wants "to see the country, the mountains, the forest and just look around from the height." Despite her fear of heights, she is eager to try paragliding and hopes to do a training course to paraglide on her own in the future. 

Mu was inspired to do the paragliding flight on one of her previous holidays to Switzerland when she saw other people paragliding in Interlaken, another Swiss hotspot for paragliding activities. 

She was nervous and excited at the same time as she was preparing to take off with Bruno Schmidt, owner of Air Taxi Zermatt. But the flight from Schwarzsee back down to Zermatt was unforgettable for Mu.

Bruno has been paragliding for nearly 40 years in Switzerland. He says that now Chinese visitors make up almost half of his clients. He says most of his clients are younger and he thinks it may be due to the communications as younger people speak the language and can understand instructions better. 

"The younger people speak English, and the older not so much," he tells CGTN. "So I think it's about the language – because we have to communicate with them. We have to explain the take-off. We have to explain to them what they could have done wrong."

Paragliding around the Alps may be popular with younger extreme sports tourists. But Switzerland, with its panoramic mountain resort towns, such as Zermatt and Interlaken, remains one of the top European destinations for Chinese tourists.