The Swiss tourism business should grow significantly again in the summer. However, it will take a few more years for the industry to make up for the losses caused by the corona pandemic.
With the vaccination campaign launched at the beginning of the year, a gradual improvement in the situation in the tourism sector can be expected, wrote the economic research center at ETH Zurich (KOF) in its forecast published on Tuesday. For the summer season, overnight stays are expected to grow by 19 percent compared to the previous year, explained KOF Director Jan-Egbert Sturm in an online presentation to the media.
Far from last year
With 16.1 million overnight stays, however, the level is still far from the pre-corona year 2019. At that time, there were 22.6 million overnight stays in Swiss hotels in the summer.
The reason for this is the absence of foreign tourists. Their overnight stays are likely to double to 6 million. But that’s not even half as much as in the pre-crisis year 2019. The Europeans in particular are likely to come back much more frequently than last year, as travel activity on the “Old Continent” will increase again with the increasing easing, explained Sturm.
On the other hand, there is still a great lull among tourists from distant countries. They could only spend half a million overnight stays in Switzerland, which is over 90 percent less than in the peak year 2019.
Swiss people as saviors in need
The Swiss are again the mainstay of domestic tourism. Local tourists are likely to book 10.1 million overnight stays, estimates the KOF. This does not quite reach the record of 10.4 million from the pandemic year 2020, when locals were on vacation in droves in droves. But there are still a little more domestic guests than before Corona in 2019.
It looks best for the Alpine region and the surrounding areas. The KOF wrote that they should soon welcome tourists from home and near abroad at the pre-crisis level.
Big problems in the cities
In contrast, the hotels in the cities and areas that are heavily dependent on guests from the Far East are deeper in the crisis. Demand from the long-haul markets is likely to remain subdued for longer and part of business tourism will probably be permanently canceled in the course of accelerated digitization. “It is to be expected that many business meetings will also take place virtually in the future,” explained the KOF.
Because of the slump last winter, the full year 2021 is likely to be even worse than the corona year 2020. The number of overnight stays will shrink by 5 percent to 25 million, estimates the KOF.
Steep growth will only set in in the next year. For the coming winter season, the KOF is expecting an increase of almost two thirds. The level of 39.4 million overnight stays before the crisis will not be reached in 2023 as a whole (38.2 million). (pbe / SDA)