Swiss hotel industry breaks 40 million overnight stays barrier
Published: Thursday, Feb 22nd 2024, 13:20
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Swiss hotels set a new guest record in 2023. With 41.8 million overnight stays, they broke the 40 million mark for the first time.
This exceeded the previous record of 39.6 million from 2019 by 5.6%. The hotel industry has therefore finally overcome the slump caused by the coronavirus pandemic. And according to tourism experts, the upturn is likely to continue.
In the months from April to December, more overnight stays were recorded than ever before in the last thirty years, the Federal Statistical Office announced in a press release on Thursday.
Following the record season in winter 2022/2023 (November to April), a new high of 24.0 million overnight stays has now also been reached in the 2023 summer season (May to October).
Foreigners arrive in large numbers again
This is thanks to the return of foreign tourists. Their overnight stays increased by almost 22 percent to 20.9 million in 2023 as a whole.
Asian guests made the largest contribution to the increase in foreign demand in 2023 with a total of 4.1 million overnight stays. This is 1.5 million more than a year ago.
However, the 2019 level was not reached. Just under a quarter of guests are still missing, as the FSO wrote.
Guests from China contributed the largest increase. With 495,000 overnight stays, they booked more than three times as many overnight stays as in the previous year. They were followed by South Korea (+151%) and India (+59%). Demand from the Gulf States also increased (+3.6%).
Despite these significant increases, demand from Asian guests remained below the 2019 level. The difference was particularly marked among Chinese guests (-65%).
Boom with the Americans
In Germany, the most important country of origin, demand rose by 4.2% to 3.8 million overnight stays. The Americans moved up into second place with a strong increase of a third to 3.1 million overnight stays.
"The North American miracle has made us happy," said Switzerland Tourism Director Martin Nydegger to the media in Kilchberg. The economy in the USA has been strong. The Americans had bought a lot of tourist GA travelcards. "We continue to assume that we will be able to retain the loyal group of Silver Surfers."
Behind them, the British also showed a strong increase of almost a quarter to 1.7 million overnight stays. "The British are incredibly adaptable. They are weathering the rise in inflation and Brexit," said Nydegger.
Switzerland benefits from the fact that the British are making fewer long-distance trips and traveling more by train because it is cheaper. They also come more often in the low season - which is also cheaper.
The British have thus widened the gap to the French in 4th place. Overnight stays by the French rose by just 6.6% to 1.4 million overnight stays. In the previous year, they were practically on a par with the British.
Slight decline among the Swiss
In contrast, the number of domestic guests fell slightly by 1.1 percent to 20.8 million. However, the level of domestic visitors remained very high, the FSO wrote: "Only in 2021 and 2022 were higher values observed."
In the current year, Nydegger is expecting another tourism record if no disasters intervene. Overall, the number of Swiss guests is likely to fall by 2.5 percent. In contrast, an increase of 3.3 percent is expected from Europe and an increase of almost 15 percent from the long-distance markets.
Americans in particular are likely to continue to travel, even if it is an election year, which would normally cause a slight dip. This is because the US economy is performing strongly.
Nydegger is not sure whether the large Chinese travel groups will ever return as they did before the pandemic. But the Swiss Tourism Director said in an interview with AWP Video that the focus is on smaller Chinese travel groups.
©Keystone/SDA
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