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Swiss ski resorts: unsuccessful season

Swiss ski resorts: unsuccessful season
Swiss ski resorts: unsuccessful season

Ski resorts in Switzerland have lost client’s interest. In total nine regions of the country recorded a decrease of the main indicators of tourist demand after the ski season.
According to the Swiss Federal Office of Statistics, the total number of overnight stays in Swiss hotels during the period from November 2011 to April 2012 was amounted to 15.2 million, which is by 3.7% lower than the same period of the last year.

Among the most affected Swiss regions is Graubunden, where are located such well-known resorts as Davos and St. Moritz. Here decrease in tourist arrivals was 8.6%. They are followed by Wallis and Bearnaise Oberland. Drop in the number of overnight stays in local hotels was 6.8% and 6.2%. Among other affected resorts are Zermatt, Verbier, Grindelwald and Interlaken. The above-mentioned Swiss ski areas experience fall in the number of nights for the second consecutive season. The Swiss themselves say that the fall in demand for holidays was due to the strengthening of the Swiss franc. It has significantly increased the price of the expensive winter resorts.

Demand for ski resorts in Switzerland dropped despite regular strengthening of the reputation of the leading regions and various marketing offers. Thus, Zermatt ski resort was included by Tripadvisor.com not into the top 30 vacation destinations on the planet, but it didn’t help to avoid decrease in demand for ski resorts. The situation can be improved by St. Moritz, which will be the capital of the Alpine Ski World Cup in 2017.

The main "culprits" of such significant drop are Europeans. Ski season in Switzerland has lost 16% booked overnight stays from German tourists, 10% from Britons and 19% from Dutch.

Among other mentioned negative factors is weather. Many resorts in Switzerland that usually open season in mid-November this time were forced to postpone the start for the second half of December.

One of the positive facts for Switzerland is that not all nations have decided to save money. Among the countries, which tourists began to book Swiss hotels more often are Russia, China, India and the Middle East.

Ilya Kalachev

Date: 18/06/2012

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