Swiss hotels expect massive drop in turnover
The Covid 19 pandemic is causing existential hardship for many Swiss accommodation providers. According to a recent survey, the industry expects sales to fall by 90% in April.
According to a report by Roland Schegg, professor at the Institute of Tourism at the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland HES-SO Valais-Wallis, the Swiss accommodation industry expects massive losses as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic. The report, commissioned by the Hotelleriesuisse association and Switzerland Tourism, is based on a survey of more than 2,000 tourism businesses throughout Switzerland, including hotels, restaurants, parahotellerie and mountain railroads.
Based on an annual turnover of the Swiss hotel industry of CHF 10.2 billion, Schegg expects turnover losses of almost two billion from March to May. Swiss tourism as a whole is expected to lose 6.4 billion by the end of this year due to the coronavirus - this would be a drop in sales of 18%.
As the survey showed, the canton of Ticino and cities such as Zurich, Basel and Geneva, where the complete collapse of business and congress tourism is having an impact, are the hardest hit by the losses, even more so than the mountain regions. Structural factors such as size of establishments, on the other hand, seem to have little influence. "The coronavirus tsunami is hitting small and large businesses almost equally," says Schegg.
According to Schegg, a decline in sales of 90% is expected in April. The study further shows that the probability of bankruptcy is estimated at 19% on average, but there are large regional differences: The risk is estimated at 36% in Ticino, 29% in the canton of Vaud, 28% in Geneva and 24% in Zurich, while in classic vacation regions such as Valais or Grisons, the probability of bankruptcy is rated lower at 17% and 15%, respectively. (bw)
