Alongside the hotel business, non-hotel accommodation and day tourism are the central pillars of the Swiss tourism industry. The Tourism Development Index (TDI) uses frequency as the basis to track the development of the industry’s economic foundation (proceeds from overnight stays, visitors, passengers and admissions).

 

It shows that tourist frequency rose markedly in the 2017 calendar year (+4.2 index points). Non-hotel accommodation was able to join the hotel industry in benefiting from renewed demand in Europe and reported a significant rise in results (+4.2 index points).

The long, beautiful summer and golden autumn was a real boom period for day trips. This, in combination with the early onset of winter, meant that day tourism recorded a plus of 4.9 index points in 2017.

Thanks to the positive trend in 2017, tourism development overall also managed to stage a turnaround. When compared to levels in its first year (2011), the index is still significantly down (-3.02%). The trend towards a Swiss-wide recovery in tourist frequency has thus set in, but the end of the recovery process is still a long way off. This applies especially to the mountain regions (overnight stays in the hotel industry are still 13.4% lower than in 2008), which are very much economically dependent on tourism.