Engadin hotels hope for a good winter after a mixed summer
Published: Friday, Nov 15th 2024, 11:20
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After a mixed summer, Upper Engadin tourism is hoping for a good winter. The Freestyle World Championships, which take place in the last two weeks of March, should provide a tailwind.
The snowboard, freestyle and freeski world championships are expected to attract around 70,000 spectators, as the organizers explained at a media conference in Zurich on Friday. There will also be 1200 athletes.
The cross-country skiing World Cup will also take place at the end of January. The competition, which is being held in the Engadin for the first time in four years, is likely to attract a few thousand additional guests, said the managing director of Engadin Tourism in an interview with the news agency AWP.
If they all stayed in the hotel for one night, the more than 70,000 additional guests would bring an increase in overnight stays of around 7 percent to the high Alpine valley.
In comparison: last winter, hotel bookings in the Upper Engadine increased by 3.9 percent to 916,000 overnight stays. This was the best result for at least six years. This exceeded the last pre-corona winter by 9 percent.
Light and shade in summer
In this year's summer season, things looked gloomier again. Light and shade alternated. "We had very bad weather at the start of the season," said Steiner. Then came six very nice weeks. In September, the weather was wet again. On the other hand, October and November were "sensational" thanks to bright sunshine.
By the end of September, 717,000 overnight stays had been recorded in hotels. This is a slight decrease of 0.3 percent compared to the previous year. The figures for October, which will be published by the Federal Statistical Office in December, are still missing for the definitive summer balance.
The slight decline up to the end of September is attributable to the Upper Engadin municipalities excluding St. Moritz, which were 1.5% below the previous year's level. In contrast, the luxury ski resort achieved an increase of 1.1%.
Swiss fly to the sea again
The expected pattern emerged: the Swiss, who had spent their vacations in the Upper Engadine in droves during the pandemic, were increasingly drawn abroad again this summer due to the poor weather. From May to September, overnight stays by Swiss residents fell by 2.6 percent.
The peak figures from the pandemic period are definitely over, said Steiner. But the whole thing is settling at a higher level than before Corona. The proportion of Swiss guests so far this season is around 52%.
There was also a drop of 5.1 percent for Germans. Overnight stays by Belgians shrank by 2 percent.
In contrast, the upswing among Americans (+8.6 percent) continued. The boom in guests from the USA has not yet abated, said Jan Steiner. Meanwhile, the British recorded a massive increase of around 42 percent.
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