Industry News
The Swiss hotel industry recorded 18 million overnight stays during the winter tourist season from November 2023 to April 2024, marking a new record. According to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (BFS), overnight stays rose by 2.9% or 504,000 nights from last year’s record season. While domestic travel accounts for more than half of these overnight stays, foreign demand has been a key driver, increasing by 6.0% or 491,000 overnight stays. More than a quarter of that increase can be attributed to visitors from the American continent with an increase of 13.9% or 179,000 nights*. The lionshare of those visits came from U.S. tourists, who accounted for a total of 1 million nights — an increase of 12.1% or 111,000 nights.
According to the BFS analysis released on June 6, a total of 463,000 U.S. Americans flocked to the Swiss Alps in the 23/24 winter, an increase on last year of 13.4%. This makes tourists from the USA the second largest group of foreign tourists to the Swiss Alpine nation, behind Switzerland’s neighbor Germany which recorded 676,000 visitors. Canadian visitors were only about a tenth that size, with 45,000 visitors contributing 105,000 nights. The largest growth from the American continent* came from South and Central America, with increases ranging from 20-29%.
Strong growth also came from the Asian continent, with a total of 1.5 million nights, an increase of 12.8% or 168,000 nights year-on-year. China made up the majority of this increase, with an increase of 139,000 nights (+147.1% year-on-year) being attributed to Chinese tourists. This makes China the country with the biggest increase in overnight stays, with the USA close behind in second place, however in terms of total nights, China lags behind the U.S. with only 234,000 overnight stays — less than a quarter the size of American overnight stays.
In the first ten months of 2023, a total of 2.7 million nights were booked by U.S. tourists. Together with the data available now from the BFS, this takes the number of nights from visitors from the USA for the year to 3 million, which is a 20% increase from the pre-Covid levels.
Ski resorts particularly popular with Americans are Zermatt, St. Moritz, Andermatt, Grindelwald, and Verbier. In Andermatt, 20% of hotel guests hailed from the United States in 2023, compared to just 5% before the Covid-19 pandemic. This development can certainly be attributed to Vail Resorts buying the Andermatt-Sedrun ski area in 2022, and the Swiss resort being included in Vail Resorts’ Epic Pass offering.
