Swiss para-hotel industry continues to grow in the third quarter
Published: Friday, Nov 24th 2023, 11:40
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The Swiss parahotel industry continued to grow in the third quarter of 2023. There was a decline in the number of Swiss guests. However, thanks to more visitors from abroad, the industry recorded more overnight stays overall than in the previous year. This continues the positive trend from the first half of the year.
The number of overnight stays in vacation apartments, campsites and collective accommodation rose by 2.2% to 7.37 million in the reporting period from July to September, as reported by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) on Friday. Compared to the same period in the last pre-corona year 2019, there were even significantly more guests. The increase here was 7.8 percent.
Together with the hotel industry, this amounted to 20.8 million overnight stays in the quarter. The para-hotel industry was thus responsible for around 35% of all overnight stays counted in Switzerland.
More foreign guests
Swiss guests were responsible for 4.63 million overnight stays, accounting for almost 63 percent of total demand. In the previous year, however, the parahotel industry recorded slightly more domestic overnight stays at 4.8 million. This is likely due to the fact that the Swiss are increasingly traveling abroad again after the pandemic.
In contrast, significantly more guests are now coming from abroad again following the lifting of coronavirus restrictions. Foreign guests accounted for 2.73 million overnight stays in the parahotel industry in the quarter under review. This is 13 percent more than in the previous year. Overall, the industry has largely returned to normal after the pandemic.
This is shown by a comparison with the first year of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, when the Swiss mainly spent their vacations in Switzerland, but hardly any foreign tourists visited the country. In the third quarter of 2020, Swiss guests were responsible for 5.90 million of all 7.40 million overnight stays, accounting for a share of almost 80 percent.
Campsites well frequented
As usual for the third quarter, campsites again accounted for the majority of overnight stays in the current year with 3.11 million. They thus accounted for 42 percent of all overnight stays in the parahotel industry. The summer months of July and August, the most important months of the year for the camping industry, fall within the reporting period. In the first half of the year as a whole, campsites accounted for just about half of the overnight stays in the third quarter.
However, the strongest increase was recorded by collective accommodation, which includes youth hostels and SAC huts. Here, overnight stays rose by 6.4% to 2.12 million.
In contrast, there was a decline in vacation apartments. Here, overnight stays fell by 6.0% to 2.14 million. With 1.03 million overnight stays, more visitors came from abroad (+5.0%). However, overnight stays by Swiss guests fell by a good 14% to 1.11 million.
Positive trend continues
Overall, the parahotel industry continued the positive trend of the year to date in the third quarter. In the first half of the year, it had already recorded 3.4 percent more overnight stays than in the previous year at 7.86 million.
Calculated over the first nine months, this represents 15.7 million overnight stays. This corresponds to an increase of 2.8 percent compared to 2022. Compared to the last pre-corona year 2019, it is 7.0% more.
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