Switzerland Reports 11.5 Percent Increase in Arrivals from U.S.

Switzerland Reports 11.5 Percent Increase in Arrivals from U.S.

Switzerland’s continued popularity with Americans was confirmed by recently released tourism data of the Swiss Federal Office of Statistics. The number of nights Americans spent in Swiss hotels shows a growth of 8.9 percent, while arrivals increased by 11.5 percent. The upward trend started in the fourth quarter of 2009 and accelerated in the spring and summer of 2010.

“Switzerland is definitely on the rise,” said Alex Herrmann, director-Americas for Switzerland Tourism. "We kept our fingers crossed for the positive development to continue through to the end of the year, and we are very pleased to see it has carried through. The U.S. again is the third most important foreign market for Switzerland, with more than 1.5 million overnights in Swiss hotels."

In particular the region of Central Switzerland with the city of Lucerne has recorded a large gain of American visitors, as have the Matterhorn region (17.6 percent) and the city of Basel (17.3 percent). The Passion Plays in Oberammergau in neighboring Germany brought an estimated 3 percent growth alone. However, several other reasons contributed to the result as well, including increased air capacity due to the new direct Swiss flights from San Francisco to Zurich, and, thanks to a slowly improving economy, business travel rebounded, and general pent-up demand materialized, after the challenging years of 2008 and 2009.

According to final 2010 figures, the number of overnight stays registered in the Swiss hotel industry in 2010 was 36.2 million, a rise of 1.7 percent, or 619,000 overnight stays more than in 2009. Swiss demand was up 2.2 percent and that of foreign visitors 1.4 percent. American visitors are, together with the guests from Asia, the main reason why Switzerland had a plus in foreign overnights in 2010.