Swiss tourism is booming – but where are the Chinese? 

The Swiss mountains, such as the Rigi in the photo, attract thousands of tourists every year. Keystone / Urs Flueeler

The number of visitors to Switzerland from the United States and India has rebounded strongly after Covid, but arrivals from China remain well below pre-pandemic levels. A look at the data reveals an intriguing story. 

Travelling in Switzerland is popular. In 2024 the Swiss hotel sector set a new record with 42.8 million overnight stays, surpassing the pre-Covid levels of 39.6 million recorded in 2019. Just under half of these overnight stays were booked by Swiss residents, whose numbers had already skyrocketed in 2021, at the height of the pandemic. 

Since then, their numbers have remained high. In 2024 hotels recorded almost 21 million arrivals from Swiss travellers. They are still the most important group for the domestic tourism industry, especially in winter. 

Arrivals versus overnight stays

The number of arrivals shows how often travellers check into hotels, regardless of the length of stay. Individuals can be counted more than once, for example if they stay in different hotels throughout their journey. Arrivals are therefore considered a rough indicator of a destination’s popularity. 

Overnights show how many nights travellers spend in hotels and guesthouses, regardless of how many people there are. They provide information on how long visitors stay on average. 

The statistics used for this articleExternal link only cover hotels, inns and guesthouses. They do not include holiday flats, Airbnbs or campsites.

From pandemic shutdown to record high 

During the Covid pandemic everything came to a grinding halt; it was a turning point for Swiss tourism. Suddenly visits from abroad were cut off. 

This was not the first time a global crisis had affected tourist numbers in the ratio of domestic versus foreign travellers. During the Second World War, for example, the proportion of international guests in Switzerland fell drastically. In 1941 more than 80% of guests at Swiss tourist destinations came from within the countryExternal link. After the war, international tourists returned in large numbers, and by 1970 some 62% of holidaymakers in Switzerland came from abroad. 

In the decades after 1970 the total number of overnight stays remained stable at 32-37 million overnight stays. It was not until the end of the 2010s that the figure began to rise noticeably, reaching a new highExternal link of 42.8 million in 2024, just a few years after the pandemic. 

In 2025 a new record is likely to be reached. In the first half of the year overnight stays were as much as 1.8% higherExternal link than in the same period of 2024. Major events such as the Eurovision Song Contest in Basel in May and the Women’s European Football Championship in June are likely contributors to this.

Where are the guests from China? 

2019 was the year of the Chinese tourist in Switzerland. The Tages-AnzeigerExternal link even called it “the Chinese wave”, referring to a single group of 12,000 employees from the American cosmetics manufacturer Jeunesse Global who had received the trip as a reward for achieving their sales targets. A fleet of 95 buses was needed to drive the group around the country. 

The scale of this massive influx is reflected in the data. Switzerland had over one million arrivals from Chinese tourists in 2019, and they spent a total of 1.3 million nights in Swiss hotels. Big tour groups from Asia weren’t popular with all Swiss people, but they were a boon for the industry. Visitors booked their trips well in advance and were happy to spend money. 

As expected, visitor numbers plummeted during the Covid pandemic. But even in the years that followed, the number of Chinese people travelling to Switzerland hasn’t bounced back. In 2024 only 485,546 arrivals and 725,129 overnight stays from China were registered. Attractions such as the Jungfrau RailwaysExternal link still feel the absence. 

According to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, China’s middle class no longer has the money to travel to Europe after Covid, and “consumer sentiment is at rock bottom”. Another factor is the Chinese government’s call for its citizens to spend holidays within China and support the domestic economy. 

Chinese travellers’ preferences are changing too, as they shift from group to individual travelExternal link. They come in smaller numbers but sometimes stay longer in one place, according to a tourism expert who spoke to Swiss public radio, SRFExternal link. 

The predictability of the pre-Covid era has vanished, writes the Zuger ZeitungExternal link: “Sometimes they come in huge numbers, then only a handful of them stay overnight.” If or when this market will recover remains uncertain. 

Americans flocking to Switzerland in droves

The current boom in tourist numbers is being driven by travellers from the United States. Since the pandemic, their numbers have increased every year. In 2023 overnight stays by Americans rose by a full 26%, and in summer 2024 they booked almost 3.5 million overnights – almost 300,000 more than the previous year. 

Unlike in China, there are many direct flights from the US to Switzerland. The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris likely attracted many Americans to Europe. And thanks to marketing by Switzerland Tourism they were making detours to Switzerland, according to the Swiss Economic Institute KOFExternal link. 

Numbers of Indian tourists are climbing sharply as well. In the first half of 2025, Indian visitors spent 378,751 nights in Swiss hotels – 10% more than the same period in 2024. 

Asian tourists trace the path of a TV series 

South Korean tourists accounted for 400,000 overnight stays in hotels to Switzerland in 2024. Broken down by region and municipality, one place stands out. Grindelwald, which is generally very popular with tourists, was one of the few municipalities to see a sharp increase in overnight stays by Koreans after the pandemic, from 55,971 nights in 2019 to 91,131 in 2023, before the figure fell to 79,309 in 2024. 

This surge is probably linked to the hit South Korean television series Crash Landing on You. In one emotional scene, the main character plays the piano on the jetty in Iseltwald on Lake Brienz, framed by lake and mountains. Since then, fans of the series have made mass pilgrimages to the Bernese Oberland region. Now the municipality charges admissionExternal link. 

The series was a hit across Southeast Asia and may have spurred travel to Switzerland from there as well. Arrivals from Malaysian and Indonesian travellers have risen far above pre-pandemic levels. 

Rush on a peaceful mountain village: Read our report from Iseltwald: 

Tourism from neighbouring countries 

In most of the municipalities covered by the statistics, visitors from neighbouring countries make up the most frequent visitor group. 

Germans and French people spend their holidays in the Swiss mountains and like to stay in the regions of Switzerland where their language is spoken. In several border communities in Graubünden and Ticino, Italian guests are the most frequent group. Brits also like to ski in Switzerland, especially in Verbier and Champéry in Valais. 

Gurtnellen in canton Uri and Faido in canton Ticino record the highest number of arrivals from the Netherlands, presumably from travellers taking a break on their way south. 

While Americans currently make up the largest group of visitors in tourist hotspots such as Grindelwald, Lucerne and Zermatt, most arrivals in other places such as Schwyz and Lungern in canton Obwalden have been from Chinese travellers. Slightly farther away from the major tourist destinations, in two municipalities, the Chinese are also the most frequent guests: Sursee in canton Lucerne and Affoltern am Albis in canton Zurich, which probably offer good overnight accommodation for group travellers. 

For some municipalities, what is most effective at drawing tourists is targeted marketingExternal link. Mörel-Filet in canton Valais, for example, has the most arrivals from Hong Kong, who visit the Aletsch region, while Leukerbad has positioned itself to become the leader in arrivals from South Korea. 

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Edited by Balz Rigendinger. Adapted from German by David Kelso Kaufher/ts