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Tourism accounts for quarter of total traffic in Switzerland

Tourism accounts for a quarter of total traffic in Switzerland
Tourism accounts for a quarter of total traffic in Switzerland Keystone-SDA

More than half of the traffic in Switzerland is attributable to mobility for leisure and tourism, according to a report. The Swiss population uses public transport much more frequently for tourist trips than foreign guests.

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On Friday the government adopted the report of the Federal Office for Spatial Development ordered by the Senate. For the first time, this report provides a definition of tourist traffic and presents figures.

According to the report, more than half of the mobility volume in Switzerland is related to leisure and tourism: 27% is accounted for by leisure traffic and 25% by tourist traffic. The proportion of tourist traffic must be estimated on the basis of various assumptions, it said.

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There are various reasons for tourist trips: 86% are for leisure purposes. This includes the classic holiday; 12% are business trips and the remaining 2% are shopping trips. For tourist trips with a destination in Switzerland, the car is used in 74% of cases, public transport in 24% and the bicycle in 2%.

The report says it is also striking that the Swiss resident population uses public transport for tourist trips much more frequently than foreign visitors. For the latter, the public transport share for day trips is only 4%, while the public transport share for transit traffic is 3%.

These findings are an important basis for shaping transport and tourism policy, the government wrote. The findings will be linked to existing traffic data.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

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