Swiss Tourism Is Booming But Where Are The Chinese?

(MENAFN- Swissinfo) The number of visitors to Switzerland from the United States and India has rebounded strongly after Covid, but arrivals from China remain well below pre-pandemic levels. A look at the data reveals an intriguing story. This content was published on September 20, 2025 - 10:30 8 minutes

After studying German and Scandinavian studies in Zurich and Oslo, I graduated from the MAZ School of Journalism and worked as a journalist for different Swiss dailies and as a freelance writer covering a wide range of topics. I have been with SWI swissinfo since 2023.

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Travelling in Switzerland is popular. In 2024 the Swiss hotel sector set a new record with 42.8 million overnight stays, surpassing the pre-Covid levels of 39.6 million recorded in 2019. Just under half of these overnight stays were booked by Swiss residents, whose numbers had already skyrocketed in 2021, at the height of the pandemic.

Since then, their numbers have remained high. In 2024 hotels recorded almost 21 million arrivals from Swiss travellers. They are still the most important group for the domestic tourism industry, especially in winter.

The number of arrivals shows how often travellers check into hotels, regardless of the length of stay. Individuals can be counted more than once, for example if they stay in different hotels throughout their journey. Arrivals are therefore considered a rough indicator of a destination's popularity.

Overnights show how many nights travellers spend in hotels and guesthouses, regardless of how many people there are. They provide information on how long visitors stay on average.

The statistics used for this articleExternal link only cover hotels, inns and guesthouses. They do not include holiday flats, Airbnbs or campsites.

From pandemic shutdown to record high

During the Covid pandemic everything came to a grinding halt; it was a turning point for Swiss tourism. Suddenly visits from abroad were cut off.

This was not the first time a global crisis had affected tourist numbers in the ratio of domestic versus foreign travellers. During the Second World War, for example, the proportion of international guests in Switzerland fell drastically. In 1941 more than 80% of guests at Swiss tourist destinations came from within the countryExternal link . After the war, international tourists returned in large numbers, and by 1970 some 62% of holidaymakers in Switzerland came from abroad.

In the decades after 1970 the total number of overnight stays remained stable at 32-37 million overnight stays. It was not until the end of the 2010s that the figure began to rise noticeably, reaching a new highExternal link of 42.8 million in 2024, just a few years after the pandemic.

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In 2025 a new record is likely to be reached. In the first half of the year overnight stays were as much as 1.8% higherExternal link than in the same period of 2024. Major events such as the Eurovision Song Contest in Basel in May and the Women's European Football Championship in June are likely contributors to this.

Where are the guests from China?

22019 was the year of the Chinese tourist in Switzerland. The Tages-AnzeigerExternal link even called it“the Chinese wave”, referring to a single group of 12,000 employees from the American cosmetics manufacturer Jeunesse Global who had received the trip as a reward for achieving their sales targets. A fleet of 95 buses was needed to drive the group around the country.

The scale of this massive influx is reflected in the data. Switzerland had over one million arrivals from Chinese tourists in 2019, and they spent a total of 1.3 million nights in Swiss hotels. Big tour groups from Asia weren't popular with all Swiss people, but they were a boon for the industry. Visitors booked their trips well in advance and were happy to spend money.

As expected, visitor numbers plummeted during the Covid pandemic. But even in the years that followed, the number of Chinese people travelling to Switzerland hasn't bounced back. In 2024 only 485,546 arrivals and 725,129 overnight stays from China were registered. Attractions such as the Jungfrau RailwaysExternal link still feel the absence.

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According to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, China's middle class no longer has the money to travel to Europe after Covid, and“consumer sentiment is at rock bottom”. Another factor is the Chinese government's call for its citizens to spend holidays within China and support the domestic economy.

Chinese travellers' preferences are changing too, as they shift from group to individual travelExternal link . They come in smaller numbers but sometimes stay longer in one place, according to a tourism expert who spoke to Swiss public radio, SRFExternal link .

The predictability of the pre-Covid era has vanished, writes the Zuger ZeitungExternal link :“Sometimes they come in huge numbers, then only a handful of them stay overnight.” If or when this market will recover remains uncertain.

Americans flocking to Switzerland in droves

The current boom in tourist numbers is being driven by travellers from the United States. Since the pandemic, their numbers have increased every year. In 2023 overnight stays by Americans rose by a full 26%, and in summer 2024 they booked almost 3.5 million overnights – almost 300,000 more than the previous year.

Unlike in China, there are many direct flights from the US to Switzerland. The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris likely attracted many Americans to Europe. And thanks to marketing by Switzerland Tourism they were making detours to Switzerland, according to the Swiss Economic Institute KOFExternal link .

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