Last winter will go down in the annals of the Swiss hotel industry, with 18.5 million overnight stays between November and the end of April. +Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox This new benchmark was achieved thanks to growth of 2.8% or 479,000 overnight stays, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) reported on Thursday. + Is mass tourism beneficial for Switzerland? The trend in visitor numbers was uneven from one month to the next, with February (-2.8%) the only black spot in the series. March saw an increase of 0.3% and December a jump of 7.0%. The 9.3 million overnight stays booked by local guests also set a new record, while the 9.2 million bookings from abroad represented a performance not seen for 17 years. While mountain destinations saw only limited growth, urban regions such as Zurich (+5.4%), Basel (+9.9%) and Geneva (+4.2%) recorded more dynamic developments. In April alone, overnight stays rose by 4.4% to 2.9 million. Translated from French by ...
