Tourism Swiss hotel industry with more guests in May and on record course

Swiss hotels welcomed significantly more guests in May than in the previous year. The industry thus remains on course for a record. While foreign tourists are returning, Swiss people are spending significantly more of their vacations in Switzerland than before the pandemic.

According to the final results published by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) on Friday, the hotel industry recorded 3.4 million overnight stays in May. This is 5.0 percent more than in the same month last year. From January to May, the number of overnight stays rose by 2.4 percent to 16.0 million.

Overall, the Swiss hotel industry remains on course to beat the guest record set in 2023, when the 40 million mark was broken for the first time with 41.8 million overnight stays. The figures for guests from abroad are increasingly approaching pre-pandemic levels.

Significantly more Americans

Germans are still the most important group of guests. From January to May, they accounted for 1.5 million overnight stays in this country. This is 1.1 percent more than in the previous year. Compared to the last pre-pandemic year 2019, however, it is still 4.9 percent less.

The second-largest group of guests were Americans with 1.0 million overnight stays. This is not only 11% more than in the same period last year, but also 34% more than from January to May 2019. Economists from BAK Economics recently even predicted that Americans will overtake Germans as the most important country of origin in the summer season (May to October).

Meanwhile, tourists from China and Japan remain well below pre-crisis levels. Chinese guests still only accounted for around half the number of overnight stays in the period from January to May, while Japanese guests were still 40 percent down.

Swiss stay at home

However, the Swiss are also the main reason for the record run. They are still taking significantly more vacations in Switzerland than before the pandemic.

At 8.2 million, the number of overnight stays by the Swiss from January to May was slightly lower than in the same period last year. However, this is still almost 17 percent more than in 2019.

As in the previous year, they are still responsible for the majority of all overnight stays. The proportion of Swiss guests in the current year is 51%. Before the pandemic, the ratio was the other way around. In 2019, the majority of guests from January to May still came from abroad, accounting for 53%.