The desire to travel is back: Swiss travel almost as much as before Corona

It’s the autumn holidays and the population’s wanderlust has taken hold again. Whether cool city trips, walking holidays or heading south to enjoy the summer feeling – the Swiss holiday fun is back.

This is also reflected in the new traffic figures from Zurich Airport. In September 2023, 2,818,696 passengers flew through Zurich Airport. This is an increase of 21 percent compared to the previous year. If you compare the passenger numbers of the same month with those before Corona, 98 percent of the passenger numbers from 2019 were achieved in September.

Compared to the same month last year, the number of flight movements increased by 13 percent to 23,310 takeoffs or landings.
With 140 passengers, the average number of passengers was five percent higher than the year before. Only in freight transport are the figures lower than last year. This year, approximately 30,632 tons of cargo were handled.

Last year, the Swiss’ desire to travel increased again, as shown by new figures from the Federal Statistical Office. Every resident of Switzerland took 2.6 trips with at least one overnight stay in 2022. On average there were exactly eight trips every day. Travel within Switzerland is also popular: 40 percent of overnight trips and 92 percent of day trips took place within Switzerland.

True to the motto ‘At home is best’, Swiss people most often go on holiday in Switzerland. In 2022, there were approximately 8.5 million trips with overnight stays in Switzerland. Italy is also a popular travel destination. There were 2.7 million trips with overnight stays.

Although there are more overnight stays in Switzerland overall, people are still more likely to travel abroad during their trip. In 2022, someone spent about 1.5 nights abroad and about one night in Switzerland.

In 2022, Swiss people traveled more often than Swiss women. Families also often go on holiday. Children and young people between the ages of 6 and 14, but also adults between the ages of 25 and 44, are often on holiday. It is also striking that German-speaking Swiss people in particular often travel.

Vacations can be quite expensive; you often save for the holidays and put a ‘holiday piece’ aside. In 2022, a holiday allowance of an average of 185 francs per day per person was granted. Most of the money was spent abroad. The winter season in particular seems to be popular for holidays among Swiss people.