Slow recovery of tourism in Basel thanks to Swiss guests

In 2021, Basel's hotels recorded 784,607 overnight stays. This was almost 44% more than in the previous year, which will probably go down in history as a catastrophic year, and not just for tourism in Basel. The average room occupancy rate of the 66 hotels (+3) was still at a low level of 35 percent. "The worst is behind us," said Daniel Egloff, Director of Basel Tourism, at a media conference on Thursday. But we are still a long way from normality. With an increase in overnight stays of almost 43.7 percent, Basel performed better than the reference cities of Zurich, Bern, St. Gallen, Lausanne and Geneva, which recorded an average increase of 21.4 percent. Egloff was pleased to note that there was a significant increase of almost 44 percent in the number of guests from Switzerland. They accounted for more than half of all overnight stays and even set new records in the months from August to October. Unsurprisingly, the number of overnight stays by guests from America and Asia barely recovered, while guests from European countries are slowly making their way back to Basel.

Upswing in leisure tourism

Egloff saw the fact that hotel occupancy was significantly higher at weekends than on weekdays as a sign that the recovery was mainly due to leisure tourism. Business, trade fair and congress tourism is still struggling at the moment. And in this area, the medium-term outlook is still uncertain: in the business sector, the newly intensified use of digital communication tools is likely to have a lasting impact on travel activity. Those responsible are also not expecting a full recovery in the area of trade fair tourism against the backdrop of the struggling exhibition operator MCH Group. However, Basel Tourism will actively promote growth in congress tourism. Based on these guidelines, Basel Tourism is expecting a moderate increase in overnight stays of 10 to 20 percent for the current year 2022. It is encouraging that Basel will be able to offer a large number of top events in view of the positive outlook in connection with the Covid-19 pandemic: Mention was made of the postponed Swissbau trade fair, the Basel Tattoo military music festival, the Swiss Indoors and also Art Basel, which had already provided the top daily figure for room occupancy last year. In addition to the Swiss Wrestling and Alpine Festival in nearby Pratteln BL, exhibitions at Basel's museums were also counted among the top events. The Mondrian show at the Fondation Beyeler and El Greco/Picasso at the Kunstmuseum Basel are two blockbuster exhibitions on the annual program. (SDA)