Swiss hotels on course to break records

More overseas tourists came to Switzerland while the Swiss increasingly vacationed abroad. Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

The recovery of the Swiss hotel industry continued in August. The industry can therefore look back on successful summer business and remains on record this year.

In August, the number of overnight stays increased by 2.4% to 4.6 million compared to the same month last year, as the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) announced on Thursday. This is also an increase of 2.6% compared to August of the last pre-Corona year 2019.

The increase is due to foreign tourists. The number of overnight stays by guests from abroad increased by 9.4% to 2.5 million compared to August 2022.

However, bookings among Swiss guests declined. The decline was 4.8% to 2.1 million overnight stays, as the FSO figures show. This confirms what local tourism experts feared: Mr and Mrs Swiss increasingly moved away again, especially in the summer.

Nevertheless, the Swiss hotel industry is still on course for records. Overall, overnight stays from January to August increased by 10.2% to 28.8 million compared to 2022. Above all, there has been an increase of 3.4% so far compared to the record year of 2019.

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