Geneva’s hotel industry is close to pre-pandemic figures
Geneva hotels accommodate nearly 3 million overnight stays a year. Foreign guests are back, though Europeans are rare.
View from a room at the Intercontinental Hotel.
Laurent Guiraud / TDG
The comeback, as expected, is spectacular. Between 2021 and 2022, the number of overnight stays registered at establishments in Canton practically doubled (+94%, from 1.44 to 2.97 million). According to data released by the Office of Cantonal Statistics (OCSTAT) on Thursday, the fourth quarter of 2022 also represents a record. The figures are 6% higher than in the fourth quarter of 2019, the last benchmark before the start of the pandemic.
Although the 2022 total is slightly lower than the figures for 2017-2019, this growth towards the end of last year should give the sector confidence. OCSTAT emphasizes that the driving force behind the observed growth comes mainly from the return of guests from abroad (+128% compared to 2021).
However, domestic customers are not left out. With nearly 800,000 overnight stays, Geneva hotels have never been booked so much by residents of Switzerland. For visitors from other regions, the increase was 39%. The latter represented over a quarter (27%) of overnight stays recorded. The highest rate noted outside of an epidemic.
Europeans are missing
Less good news comes from the EU. The number of arrivals from the 28 member states in 2022 is a far cry from pre-Covid levels. European tourists and professionals booked just under 850,000 nights in 2022, up from more than 1.1 million in 2019.
Thinning for the sector is not a regional exception. In the province of Zurich, whose tourism profile is similar to that of Geneva, the increase is the same in 2022 (+96%), underlines OCSTAT.
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