Switzerland
Switzerland
Travellers from Switzerland made 14.5 million outbound visits in 2024, with a total international tourism expenditure of US$24.2 billion.
In 2023, the UK welcomed 968,000 visits from Switzerland. During the travellers’ visits, their total expenditure was £755.3 million, with an average spend of £781 per person.
Visitor characteristics
- Almost half of Swiss visitor spending in the UK comes from holidaymakers, a record £354 million in 2023.
- More than three quarters of holiday visitors are making a repeat trip to Britain (excluding British nationals).
- Most visitors are Swiss, but 37% of those coming to see friends or family in the UK are British nationals.
- 96% of departing visitors say that they are either ‘likely’ or ‘extremely’ likely to recommend a visit to Britain.
Popular activities for this market
Dining in a restaurant.
Visiting a pub.
Going shopping.
For further information on activities and experiences for this market, please click here.
Explore the inbound data in full
Use our visualisations to see data from this market in greater depth and clarity. Compare annual statistics, and filter by age group, gender, trip duration and more. Includes seasonality, trip purpose and regional spread of visitors to UK destinations. This data is based on the International Passenger Survey, conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
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Perceptions of Britain in the Swiss market
- The top three perceptions of Britain amongst Swiss travellers in 2022:
- There are vibrant towns and cities to explore.
- It is a place where I can explore history and heritage.
- It offers a lot of different experiences in one destination.
- More than one-in-four find the idea of ‘shopping in Harrods’ to be appealing, and 21% associate the statement ‘shopping is good value for money’ with Britain.
Global context
Top-level statistics relating to tourism expenditure and popular destinations for this market. For greater detail on inbound tourism flows from this market to the UK, see our data visualisations.
| Measure | 2024 |
| International tourism expenditure (US$bn) | 24.2 |
| Global rank for international tourism expenditure | 17 |
| Number of outbound overnight visits (m) | 14.5 |
| Most visited destination | France |
Caring for visitors
- The Swiss are prepared to pay for good quality accommodation, but they do expect high quality for it.
- Cleanliness is of major importance to the Swiss, as are sustainability and environmental issues.
- The Swiss enjoy organic food, and appreciate this being available when on holiday.
The leisure and travel trade
- According to the Swiss Travel Federation (SRV), the top ten tour operators in Switzerland probably account for 70% of the total market.
- The larger operators contract their annual programmes between January and April, while smaller operators work to a slightly later timetable, researching between July and September.
- Germany’s Dertour group now own the two largest Swiss tour operators Kuoni and Hotelplan.
Access to Britain from Switzerland
The key routes and transport modes that connect this market with the UK.
| Measure | 2024 |
| Weekly aircraft departures | 479 |
| Weekly seat capacity | 78,626 |
| Airports with direct routes in Switzerland | 3 |
| Airports with direct routes in Britain | 21 |
- The vast majority of visits to Britain from Switzerland are made by air.
- Geneva and Zurich are the airports with the highest volume of capacity destined for Britain, with the bulk (71%) of total direct Switzerland to UK seats going to London airports.
- Following the COVID-19 pandemic, scheduled seat capacity on non-stop flights from Switzerland to the UK recovered to 94% of 2019 levels in 2024.
- To see rates of Air Passenger Duty for visitors departing Britain for Switzerland, click here.
- To see entry requirements for visitors from this market, click here.
Further resources
How we source this information
We work with a number of data sources to provide a rich and insightful picture of our key inbound source markets. This includes, but is not limited to, data provided by Oxford Economics, the UNWTO, Apex, Anholt-Ipsos Nation Brands Index and from our own surveys and ad-hoc research. The largest share of these data comes from the International Passenger Survey (IPS) by the ONS.
Visit our About the International Passenger Survey page for more information on how this data is collected and analysed.
