Increasing Significance of US Tourists

Prospects for Swiss tourism are positive. In its latest tourism forecast, KOF predicts a 2.1% increase in overnight stays in the coming summer season. This comes after the last winter season wasn’t as good as expected, but was nevertheless satisfactory: On the whole, overnight stays increased by 0.7% compared with the previous winter.

The highest increase in demand last winter was among US Americans. Their overnight stays in Switzerland increased by a whopping 10.6%. A glance at the detailed data shows that North American tourists have already been becoming increasingly important for Swiss tourism for a few years now (see G 1). Overnight stays among this group increased by 9.9% across the whole of 2018, and by 11.4% in 2017. The last decrease was recorded in 2011 (-0.3%), with the number of overnight stays increasing every year since. Since 2011, the proportion of American tourists in Switzerland has increased from 4.2 to 5.8% of all tourists.

Benefits for mountain regions

Last year, Bern, Lucerne and the other Alpine regions saw particularly big increases in the number of overnight stays by US Americans. The plus in Lucerne was 14.6%, 18.4% in Bern, 11.8% in the Grisons, and 15% in Valais. Almost every second US tourist still holidays in urban regions, although this proportion has steadily decreased in recent years. KOF is expecting the decrease in urban travellers to continue until 2021.

One of the reasons for the increase in US travellers is probably the positive economic trend in their home country. The US American gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 2.2% in 2017, and 2.9% in 2018. According to forecasts, the plus for this year should also be over 2%. Furthermore, the US dollar has tended to be up against the franc in the past five years, making Switzerland more affordable for US tourists.

The price competitiveness of Swiss destinations has also improved in recent years. Prices in Swiss tourism increased by a reserved 1.1% in 2018. This year, prices should increase by a slightly stronger 1.6%.

Recovery in the Euro area

North American, as well as Asiatic countries of origin should record the highest growth rates in coming years. The recovery that has started following the Swiss franc shock should also continue in overnight stays by guests from the Euro area – provided that the franc doesn’t rapidly increase in value against the Euro. While the forecast for visitors from Germany is positive, prospects for neighbouring France and Italy are still rather reserved due to economic development dropping off.

The trend is domestic demand is less volatile than in foreign demand. From 2011 to 2016, overnight stays by Swiss residents increased by an average of 0.6% per year. Thanks to dynamic economic developments and the recovered competitiveness of the domestic tourism industry, the pendulum has swung back in the past two years, with growth in domestic demand at 3.3% in each year. The forecast assumes growth in tourism of around 1% for the current and coming years. Graph G 2 shows the forecasts for the development of overnight stays by foreign and domestic guests in total.