Iseltwald, Switzerland battles tourist boom as Crash Landing On You fans flock to famous Lake Brienz pier
The curious collision of devoted fans of a South Korean Netflix series and the show’s breakout star — a lakeside pier in small-town Switzerland.
Since Crash Landing On You debuted six years ago, devotees of K-drama have been descending on the village of Iseltwald, just outside Interlaken. The wooden T-shape dock on Lake Brienz played a brief but pivotal role in the Shakespearean love story of a wealthy South Korean executive and an enigmatic North Korean soldier.
Before the show aired, says Titia Weiland, manager of the Bonigen-Iseltwald Tourism agency, tourists typically visited the region during the summer, hiking in the Bernese Alps or boating in the lapis-blue lakes.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, fans did not immediately come. Once borders reopened, however, Weiland says up to a thousand people a day began descending on Iseltwald, home of 400 residents, three hotels, one grocery store and the celebrity dock.
“It was an active boat pier, but it was used very little,” Weiland says.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.“It’s become very famous because of the series, and then you have another kind of fame — the people coming to see the people visiting the pier.”
Last October, Stefanie and Caleb Rouse visited from Pittsburgh in the US. The married couple waited nearly two hours to stand on the pier where Ri Jeong-hyeok (Hyun Bin), the male love interest, performed a piano piece overheard by Yoon Se-ri (Son Ye-jin), the female lead who happened to be cruising by on a boat. The pair passed the time by chatting with fans from South Korea and Japan.
To set the mood on the dock, the Rouses cued up the show’s soundtrack, which had been in heavy rotation during their three-week journey in Europe. Stefanie clutched a bouquet purchased in Paris.
“The music was playing, the sun was setting, and we were dancing around on the dock,” says Stefanie, 38, a relationship mentor and author. “It was such a sweet romantic moment.”
Miho Shiawase, a new convert to K-dramas, beat the crowds.
In 2021, the Swiss resident visited five film sites over two days, travelling by train, bus and boat from her home in Lucerne. She started with the traditional wooden home on Lake Lungern that appears in the show’s final scene, followed by the Iseltwald pier and a scenic cruise on the lake.
Her “set-jetting” tour also included the Panorama Bridge (Panoramabrucke) in Sigriswil, the Victoria-Jungfrau Grand Hotel & Spa in Interlaken and a night at the Grandhotel Giessbach, which appeared in the series as the music school that Jeong-hyeok attended.
“The Swiss scenes gave me such a nostalgic feeling, especially since some of the locations, like Zurich and Brienzersee (Lake Brienz), I had actually visited before,” Shiawase, 34, an office co-ordinator, says over email. “It was surreal to stand in the exact spots where the movie was filmed — to think, this is where Captain Ri or Yoon Se-ri stood!”
With so few visitors, Shiawase says she could take her sweet time snapping photos of herself re-enacting scenes, playing both roles. At the boat pier, she could count the number of visitors on one hand.
To help her fellow fans, Shiawase shared her itinerary on her blog, Miho’s Happy Life. She also compiled all the Swiss locales, organising the dozen-plus sites by episode.
“What really surprised me was how many different places they used — Zurich, Interlaken, Iseltwald, Brienz, Grindelwald. I honestly didn’t expect the series to feature so many stunning Swiss spots.”
In 2023, Shiawase visited South Korea and several film locations, such as Wolfgang’s Steakhouse, Acredo Seoul and BBQ Olive Chicken. She didn’t update her Crash Landing On You post with the Seoul stops.
Larger destinations such as Zurich and Interlaken can better absorb a high volume of tourists. Iseltwald struggled.
The surge started in 2022, when Weiland says up to a dozen tour buses a day would deposit 60 or 70 people by the pier. The visitors, often on a grand sweep of Europe, would quickly snap a photo before hustling back on the bus.
Most people didn’t stay long enough to hike to Giessbach Falls; paddle around Little Snail Island, where monks from Interlaken Abbey allegedly bred the molluscs; or sample lake fish in cream sauce at a local restaurant.
The pedestrian and vehicular traffic also frustrated residents on their daily commutes or leisurely strolls, Weiland says. Some homeowners discovered strangers poking around their residences and gardens.
“If your house is right on the village square, it’s a very different kind of living than it used to be,” offers Weiland.
Municipal leaders eventually reached a breaking point and introduced measures to relieve the pressure on the infrastructure and help restore the community’s quiet way of life. They restricted the tour buses to two every two hours. During a months-long redesign of the square, which started on September 1, the large coaches must park and unload passengers on the outskirts of town, a 10-minute walk to the centre.
To handle the masses, the transportation company PostBus added 120-passenger double-decker buses on a new express route between Interlaken and Iseltwald in 2023. On peak days, the company said up to 2000 passengers travel the 17 minutes between Interlaken Ost and Iseltwald’s Dorfplatz.
The same year, the municipality installed a turnstile at the pier, charging 5 francs (about $9), and the public toilet. Previously, Weiland says, one person would pay to unlock the bathroom door and would keep it open for the busload of passengers. Now, each user pays a franc. In 2024, the town collected about $442,000 for pier access and about $11,000 for the restroom. The funds help pay for garbage disposal, restroom cleaning and other maintenance.
On Switzerland Tourism Tipps, a Facebook page dedicated to Swiss travel, members were split on the pier fee. Some opposed it, sharing tips on evading it.
“A lot of the visitors don’t go on the boat pier now. They just take their pictures right beside it,” says Weiland. “So it’s not an amazing amount of money coming in.”
Many people supported the charge, describing a sense of responsibility to contribute to the village’s economy and upkeep.
The Rouses are pro-turnstile. They say the barricade instils a sense of civility — hordes of visitors don’t rush the pier but patiently wait their turn.
Facing forward, eyes on the lake, they say they feel as if they were the only two people there.
The set-jetting culture for Crash Landing On You is more grassroots. Enthusiasts typically cobble together their own itineraries. In true fan-club fashion, they often post their routes online, sharing with the wider K-drama community.
As the owner of Jungfrau Tours, Robertus Laan arranges hotel and train packages throughout Switzerland. In 2022, he started hearing about a surge of Asian travellers in Iseltwald inquiring about the dock. Soon after, he began receiving requests for a Crash Landing On You excursion.
He assembled a tour with about eight sites spread over two days, which was too long for the set-jetters. So, he shortened it by half, cutting the historical and cultural sections and stopping at each attraction just long enough for the participants to snap a photo.
“The first time I guided them myself, I was ready to tell them about how the little town of Iseltwald has very beautiful old houses with engraved writings,” says Laan. “They said, ‘No we need to go. We have made our selfie, and we are ready for the next thing.’”
