You won’t find it written in any guidebook or printed on any map, but in reality there are two Genevas. One is ‘international Geneva’, the world-renowned birthplace of the Red Cross, the European headquarters of the United Nations and home to numerous other inter-governmental institutions and regulatory agencies.
The other is an orderly, French-looking town nestled on the shores of Lac Leman and the River Rhône, under the shadow of Mont-Blanc and the surrounding Alps.
The first is a prestige brand, its signature Jet d’eau fountain proudly spouting seven tonnes of water 140 metres above the lake. The second is an introverted, even secretive, place, with a strong banking and financial industry. With 35,000 international functionaries encamped among the leafy public parks along the lake’s north (right) bank and the local population largely congregating around the medieval old town on the south (left), the two Genevas frequently live parallel existences.
With 185 nationalities among its 185,000 citizens, shouldn’t this be the most stupendously vibrant, cosmopolitan place on earth? However, it isn’t really. Ethnic restaurants exist, but don’t necessarily outnumber Swiss and French establishments. Public manners are friendly but restrained and multiculturalism mainly goes on behind closed doors at diplomatic functions or private gatherings.
‘We are not London, Paris, or even Zürich,’ says Isabelle Hesse from the Geneva tourist office. ‘We offer a more traditional and classic city experience.’
To be fair, it is possible to sense the broad international mix that turbo-drives the economy when you wander around the working-class Plainpalais quarter southwest of the lake or in the right-bank Pâquis – Geneva’s Soho – during the week.
However, on a quiet Sunday when much of the population is away in the countryside, the prime attractions are the Red Cross Museum, the Palais des Nations UN headquarters and – bear with us – the Cathédrale St Pierre, once home to Protestant preacher Jean Calvin. Afterwards, finding little to do save to faire du lêche-vitrine (literally ‘window lick’ or window shop) among the closed luxury stores, visitors might ruefully reflect that Geneva sure can put the ‘village’ into ‘global village’.
During the Cold War, this split personality was rarely a problem. Switzerland’s neutrality between East and West guaranteed that international organisations and multinational corporations considered well-equipped, multilingual Geneva their natural habitat. But in the last 15 years, the city has found itself facing increasing competition. In 1995, the newly formed World Trade Organization wanted to set up shop in Bonn instead and had to be aggressively wooed to Geneva. Losing the huge, annual World Telecom conference in 2004 was also a major blow.
During this period, the authorities began to worry that the chasm between the international corps and local community was hurting business. A Welcome Centre was established to smooth the transition for incoming international staff and various other bridging initiatives begun.
Unfortunately, however, local politics have only widened the gap recently. A deadlock in the parliament – split between left and right for four years – has done little to redress high unemployment (at 7.1 percent, nearly twice the national average), a chronic housing shortage (with a vacancy rate of only 0.15 percent) or staggering government debt (SFr12bn or £5.3bn).
In September 2005, before a referendum on allowing citizens from the new EU countries to work in Switzerland, parts of this traditionally liberal region voiced negative opinions about foreigners – particularly commuters from neighbouring France!
‘Geneva is undergoing a kind of identity crisis,’ says journalist Stéphane Bussard from local newspaper Le Temps, who’s also written a book, Le malaise genevois, about the schizophrenic city’s recent ills. ‘I think that vote was very telling, projecting our problems on to somebody else. It shows we don’t have a vision of what Geneva’s future in the region should be.’
According to Bussard, this is crucial. He says the city’s international status has allowed it to stand apart from the rest of the canton and neglect proper cooperation with neighbouring Vaud canton, too. ‘There is tremendous potential, for example, in biotechnology field between Lausanne and Geneva.
‘Geneva has used its international status as the glue to hold things together. Now that’s not enough. It needs to reinvent itself in a regional capacity.’
Every cloud has a silver lining, though, and Geneva’s realisation that it can no longer rest on its laurels is reaping benefits for visitors to the city. For them, the hallmark of the old, unassailably confident Geneva was the stuffy and, well, conventional style of some of its hotels and restaurants. Now everything is becoming more modern and exciting, as Geneva tries to entice a new generation of guests.
The tourist office’s Isabelle Hesse articulates a frequent sentiment when she says, ‘Things are moving, quietly.’
The five-star La Reserve and the Manotel group of three- and four-star hotels are leading the way with their appealing contemporary properties, but nearly other major establishments have been upgraded, too.
The 2000-seat International Conference Centre (www.cicg.ch) reopened in October after a total revamp, while restaurants are also changing.
Much-loved gastronomic institutions remain, from the haute-cuisine Domaine de Châteauvieux (022 753 15 11; Peney-dessus) 15km from the centre, to the atmospheric, 15th-century Les Armures (022 310 91 72; Rue du Puits-St-Pierre 1), serving fondue, rösti and raclette to a clientele that once included Bill Clinton, and the bohemian Buvette de Bains (022 738 16 16; Quai du Mt-Blanc 30), for champagne fondue, a swim or drink in summer and a winter-time hammam.
However, now these are joined by sleek contemporary numbers such as elegant Italian restaurant Senso (022 310 39 90; Passage du Rhône 56), seafood specialist Auberge du Lion d’Or (022 736 44 32; Place Pierre-Gautier 5, Cologny), French ù bobba (022 310 53 40; Rue de la Corraterie 21) and the refitted, panoramic Restaurant du Parc des Eaux-Vives (022 849 75 75;Quai Gustave-Ador 82)
In the impossibly cute southern district of Carouge, a 17th-century artisans’ village built by a jealous Sardinian king to rival Geneva, locals and bankers still revel in classic cellar bars like Le Chat Noir (Rue Vautier 13), but now you can also choose to do business over a meal in the aptly named Café des Negociants (022 300 31 30; Rue de la Filature 29).
Among the low conversation and the faint chinking of glasses here, it’s apparent that the everyday mood is far from gloomy in fundamentally well-off Geneva. The city is, after all, home to the famous CERN particle physics laboratory, it’s seen multinationals such as Gamble and Procter locate their European headquarters here and its popularity with the Russian business community has transformed it into a surprisingly powerful oil-trading hub.
It will always have plenty of staunch fans, too. The managing director of English-language radio station WRG-FM, Lucy Walker, is a relative newcomer, but says Geneva has lived up to her every expectation of how international it would feel.
British Consul Alistair Church, who’s been establishing a ‘Brits in Business’ networking group, believes that for an essentially large town, as opposed to a major metropolis, Geneva is a dynamic place to do business. ‘The reputation that it once had, it no longer deserves,’ he says.
Even Le Temps’ Stéphane Bussard is ultimately upbeat, believing a new parliament elected in November could end the political stalemate. ‘I’ve been covering Genevan politics,’ he says, ‘We have a management problem, but the Genevan economy is still working wonders in a way. It’s still a fundamentally rich place.’
A revolution in Geneva’s hotels
With 16 five-star hotels in such a small city, competition is fierce at the top end of the market, but everyone – even wistful taxi-drivers – will happily declare La Reserve (022 959 59 59; www.lareserve.ch; 301 route de Lausanne) ‘le plus beau hôtel en Genève’.
The first truly designer Genevois establishment, thanks to a major revamp in 2003 by Parisian designer Jacques Garcia, it’s three miles north of the centre in lakeside parkland. The tone is of a modern safari lodge, where panels of discreet animal-print carpet and playful bird silhouettes on the light fittings accompany red leather lounge chairs, and 102 elegant, low-lit rooms and suites with clean lines and parquet floors.
Besides the lacquer-red Chinese restaurant, the canvas-ceilinged French restaurant, and a DJ bar, one definite highlight is the luxury spa, featuring products from Clinique La Prairie and Cinq Mondes. The sort of hotel you expect to see one day in Herbert Ypma’s Hip Hotels series, La Reserve even operates its own boat to the town centre in summer.
Another headline-grabbing player is the Manotel group of hotels (Reservations 022 909 81 81; www.manotel.com), which is already winning custom from major corporations interested in style at a lesser price. All its six hotels are in central Pâquis, including the four-star Auteil (Rue de Lausanne 33), with its movie-star, updated Art Deco look, and the light-filled Epsom (Rue Richemont 18), with its excellent restaurant and large conference facilities. Two of Manotel’s three-star outlets are just as noteworthy. The Jade (Rue Rothschild 55) conforms to a chic Oriental design (and the rules of Feng Shui), while the Kipling (Rue de la Navigation 27) has a colonial feel.
Elsewhere, the Hotel des Bergues (022 908 70 00; www.fourseasons.com; Quai des Bergues 33) has recently reopened, with new contemporary features, as part of the Four Seasons chain, joining Hotel d’Angelterre (022 006 55 55; www.hoteldangleterre.ch; Quai du Mont-Blanc 17) and the Hotel Intercontinental (022 919 39 39; www.intercontinental.com; 7-9 Chemin du Petit Saconnex) in recent renovations. Hotel de la Paix (022 909 60 00; Quai du Mont-Blanc 11; www.concorde-hotels.com
