Foreign visitors drive rise in overnight stays in Switzerland
After a record year in 2023, the Swiss hotel industry is enjoying a positive early start to the year, mainly thanks to large numbers of foreign visitors.
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The total number of overnight stays rose by 3.8% to 3.4 million in February compared to the same month last year, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) reported on Monday. In January, the number of overnight stays had already risen by 2.2% to 3.1 million.
More international guests
Guests from abroad were the main driving force behind the increase. They were responsible for 1.5 million overnight stays in February, which corresponds to an impressive increase of 9.4%. The largest number of guests came from Germany with 317,000 overnight stays, followed by the UK (167,000), the United States (149,000) and France (128,000).
+ Tourist spending in Switzerland returning to pre-pandemic levels
In February, the number of Swiss guests fell slightly by 0.3% compared to the previous year. Despite this, the Swiss still accounted for the majority of guests with 1.9 million overnight stays.
Overall, the Swiss hotel industry has successfully built on last year’s record number of hotel guests with 41.8 million overnight stays. The 40-million mark was exceeded for the first time in 2023.
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Adapted from German by DeepL/dkk/sb
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