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Swiss youth hostels hit record overnight stays in 2023 

Picture of guests coming out of hostel with suitcases.
For international guests, there was a slight decline of 1.7 points compared to 2019. Keystone / Martial Trezzini

The Swiss Youth Hostel Association (AJS) has reported a record number of overnight stays in 2023. While Swiss guest proportions rose by 3.1 points from 2019, there was a minor decline for international guests. 

On the occasion of its 100th anniversary celebrations, the Swiss Youth Hostel Association (AJS) announced on Sunday that it had recorded a record number of overnight stays in 2023. Overnight stays at the 42 affiliated hostels rose by 7.4% year-on-year to 807,196. 

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The proportion of Swiss guests reached 73.3%, up by 3.1 points from the “pre-Covid” year of 2019. “The desire to travel has certainly returned,” stated the association in a press release. For international guests, there was a slight decline of 1.7 points compared to 2019. 

“The positive figures for 2023 have been confirmed in the first few months of 2024, indicating another successful anniversary year,” said Janine Bunte, the director of the non-profit organisation. 

+Foreign visitors drive rise in overnight stays in Switzerland

Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin was one of around 500 guests at the celebrations in Rapperswil-Jona, on the shores of Lake Zurich, on Sunday. 

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“In the beginning, 100 years ago, the idea was to promote leisure in a sensible way and to offer something for that purpose,” he said. “Swiss youth hostels have clearly succeeded in doing this, underlining their important role for Swiss tourism and serving as its calling card.”  

Translated from French by DeepL/sp

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.  If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch

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