Statistics show Switzerland is apparently the place to be
At its annual press conference, Switzerland Tourism noted that the country’s tourism numbers has increased exponentially.
Even though the Swiss tourism industry had been hit hard by the strong franc some years ago which made holidays in Switzerland more expensive for Europeans, the country’s largest tourist market remains Germany, followed by the United States. The number of visitors from Southeast Asia and India also grew by +-10%.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise as Switzerland is one of the top destinations on many bucket-lists – whether for skiing in the Alps, hiking, river rafting, eating cheese and chocolate, or simply taking in the incredible nature and vistas.
And not only did the number of overnight stays in Swiss hotels increase by 3.8% in 2018 (to 38.8 million), but domestic tourism also rose by 2.7% on the previous year (with 17.7 million stays by locals).
Switzerland also welcomed the 3.7% increase in European guests but mentioned a worrying statistic that, in mountain regions, this figure was still down 43% compared to 2008!
It seems Switzerland’s tourism association is optimistic about the year ahead as it expects the positive trend from Europe and demand from India, China, the US and Australia to continue.
