Swiss Franc is very strong at the beginning of the winter season 2010 and it will make the coming winter harder for many Swiss hoteliers. The Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs expects 1.5 percent fewer overnight stays than in 2009.
Simultaneously with launching the winter campaign called the Weiss Tourism, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs has presented the latest tourism forecasts. However, the numbers are not very encouraging.
Richard Kampf, a director of tourism department at the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, said that the overnight stays are expected to drop by approximately 1.5 % compared to last year. Kampf added that they also expect a decline of 5% in the visitors coming from Euro zone, reported Htr.ch.
Such development goes hand in hand with the strengthening of the Swiss Franc. Since the beginning of the year, the Swiss prices have increased by 15% for the visitors coming from the Euro zone.
The representatives of the tourism industry are aware of the situation. Christoph Juen from CEO hotel association suggests that the solution lies in providing guests with additional services. The right investments can save the day. For example the Cable Cars Switzerland put 387 million Swiss francs, the second highest investment that has ever been realized, into customer services and is now ready to welcome more guests.
Nevertheless, in long term the number of guests is not as bad. The tourism experts believe that at the end of 2011 a strong recovery will begin and 2012 is seen as the year of moderate improvement and a growth of 3.3 percent is expected in 2013. Then, the future seems promising after all.