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A five-star boutique hotel in the Swiss countryside has gone viral on YouTube and reached such levels of Instagram fame that it no longer needs to pay for advertising.
The infinity pool at Villa Honegg, which overlooks Lake Lucerne, is so popular that it has not paid for advertising for seven years as tourists flock to take photos of it.
General Manager Sebastian Klink said: “Social media is our advertising. We haven’t had paid media since our renovation in 2011.”
According to Klink, the hotel first gained rapid popularity when a Brazilian blogger posted a video of the pool at night on YouTube and the post went viral.
Klink said: “When this video went live online we saw that emails were coming in from around the world.”
He added that the spa was popular too but it was the video of the pool which triggered an influx of bookings from guests from countries such as the United States, Australia and Korea.
“Many visitors come for only one night because they really just want to take a picture with the pool,” Klink said.
