Demand soars for Swiss alpine huts
Huts run by the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC) are becoming increasingly popular. With 409,000 overnight stays last year, the occupancy rate was 12.7% higher than in 2024.
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Demand soars for Swiss alpine huts
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The winter season made a particularly strong contribution to this result.
As a result, 2025 will go down in the history of the SAC as the most successful year ever for its refuges, according to a press release. Of the 409,000 overnight stays recorded, 319,000 were in summer and 90,000 in winter.
The fact that this result was achieved despite the closure of seven huts underlines the continuing popularity of the huts with mountaineers, according to the SAC. The winter season saw strong growth, with an increase of 25.7%.
In 2025, most overnight stays were recorded in Valais, with 119,721. Next came Graubünden with 84,382 overnight stays and the Bernese Alps with 74,775. Growth was particularly strong in Ticino and the canton of Glarus. The most popular hut was once again Lämmeren, in Valais, with 10,053 overnight stays.
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This pleasing trend should not obscure the fact that the mountain huts are facing major challenges, the SAC points out.
Melting permafrost, extreme weather conditions and an increasingly difficult water supply have made it necessary to adapt the construction of huts. The SAC Central Committee expects to spend between CHF20 and CHF25 million a year on construction projects between now and 2040.
A third of this expenditure will be spent on adaptations in response to climate change.
According to its own figures, the Swiss Alpine Club has 180,000 members and 151 mountain huts.
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Adapted from French by AI/mga
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