Swiss hotel industry also suffers from Corona in February
The Corona crisis continues to leave deep scars on the Swiss hotel industry. The number of overnight stays slumped again in February. The absence of guests from abroad is particularly painful in the skiing destinations that are popular beyond Switzerland's borders.
In February, overnight stays in Swiss hotels fell overall by 40 percent to 2.00 million compared to the still relatively good comparative figures from the previous year, as reported by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) on Tuesday. Thus, the number of overnight stays in the months of January and February has almost halved to 3.3 million.
The worldwide travel restrictions, such as strict quarantine regulations or even border closures, are a heavy burden on tourism. After a good start to the year, the consequences of the Corona pandemic in 2020 brought the number of overnight stays in Switzerland back to the level of the early 1950s.
The lockdown months in the spring of last year, when business came to a virtual standstill, were drastic for hoteliers. In March 2020, about half of which was affected by the lockdown, overnight stays plummeted by 62 percent to 1.3 million. In April, only around 200,000 (-92%) and in May around 600,000 (-79%) overnight stays were recorded.
From this low base, rising numbers and positive growth rates in accommodation can be expected again with a view to the further course of 2021. However, the situation in the hotel industry remains tense, as the third Corona wave means that foreign tourists are not yet expected to return any time soon.
Burglary with foreign tourists
Swiss hotels are still frequented almost exclusively by domestic guests, with far fewer tourists arriving from abroad. This was also the case at the beginning of 2021. In January and February, the decline in overnight stays by foreign guests was almost 80 percent to 2.5 million. Still the most tourists came from Germany (-75% to 170,000) and from France (-50% to 117,000).
Somewhat surprisingly, Poland took third place with a strong increase to 60,900 overnight stays. By contrast, business with tourists from Great Britain (-94%), the Netherlands (-88%), America (-94%) or Asia (-95%) collapsed.
Business with Swiss guests is better, but here, too, the number of overnight stays declined. By the end of February, a total of 2.63 million overnight stays had been registered with domestic guests. Compared with the same period last year, this represents a drop of one fifth. In February alone, the drop was only 4 percent thanks to the skiing vacations.
Winter resorts suffer
The 2020/21 winter season is a season to forget for the Swiss hotel industry overall. This is shown by an evaluation of the AWP news agency. In the 100 or so winter sports resorts surveyed, overnight stays from December to February shrank by a good third to 1.45 million compared with the 2019/20 season.
Those tourist destinations in the mountains that are heavily dependent on foreign visitors have been hit particularly hard. For example, the number of overnight stays in Zermatt, Davos and St.Moritz fell by 41, 36 and 49 percent respectively. Arosa, Grindelwald, Saas-Fee and Crans-Montana also recorded declines of around 30 percent. In contrast, Andermatt (-12%) held up somewhat better thanks to the higher proportion of Swiss tourists.
Interlaken, which is popular with Asians, tourists from the Arab world and overseas, even suffered an 80 percent drop in overnight stays during the winter months. However, Interlaken is more worth a trip for tourists in the summer. (AWP/SDA/OG)
