Switzerland by train, bus and boat.
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Switzerland’s continued popularity with Canadians was confirmed by recently released tourism data of the Swiss Federal Office of Statistics. The number of nights Canadians spent in Swiss hotels shows a growth of 8.6%, while arrivals increased by 8.3%. The upward trend started in the second half of 2009 and accelerated in the spring and summer of 2010.
“Switzerland is definitely on the rise”, says Alex Herrmann, Director of Switzerland Tourism Americas. “We kept our fingers crossed for the positive development to continue through to the end of the year, and we are very pleased to see it has carried through. Canadians spent 207,353 overnights in Swiss hotels. Not included in this statistic are overnights in apartments, youth hostels or stays with friends and families.
With 58,635, the city of Zurich claimed the largest number of Canadian overnights, followed by the Lake Geneva & Matterhorn region with the greatest growth, profiting from a new direct flight to Geneva by Air Canada. The city of Basel shows a 17.3% increase in Canadian visitors, and the Lake Lucerne region shows a 22% improvement to 2009, being able to attract some of the Oberammergau pilgrims to rest at its shore. Not just added capacity, but superior comfort by Swiss Air Lines’ new business and first class between Montreal and Zurich further enhances travel between Canada and Switzerland.
According to final 2010 figures, the number of overnight stays registered in the Swiss hotel industry in 2010 was 36.2 million, a rise of 1.7% or 619,000 overnight stays more than in 2009. Swiss demand was up 2.2% and that of foreign visitors 1.4%.
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For questions, please contact Ursula Beamish-Mader, Manager Media Relations North America. (ursula.beamish@switzerland.com)
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Switzerland Tourism is an enterprise of the public right of the Swiss Federation and operates globally in 29 countries. Its major focus is the development of high quality marketing programs to stimulate leisure and business travel to Switzerland within and outside it’s borders. In the Americas, Switzerland Tourism operates offices in Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, and São Paulo.
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