Canton reports record levels of overnight stays

Earlier this week we reported on the huge potential the new head of the Zug Tourist Board (ZT), Seraina Koller, saw in attracting visitors to the area. In the latest figures published in relation to the number of overnight stays in the canton on 2014, the last year in which Urs Raschle was in charge, it is encouraging to read that the number of overnight stays was up by 10% on the year before.
 
What was particularly pleasing was that the increase in overnight stays in the canton during the period between June and September was the highest recorded in all Switzerland.
 
Looking at the statistics relating to Zurich, the number of overnight stays here in 2014 amounted to 4.8 million, up by 2% on the previous year. In Switzerland as a whole, 35,933,512 overnight stays were recorded, up by 1% on the previous year. Hence the increase of 10% recorded by Zug is quite an achievement, albeit at a more modest 336,724 overnight stays.
 
Naturally, any major events which take place here are expected to attract more visitors and the Police Music Festival held in June no doubt boosted the numbers, but it is clear that Zug is becoming increasingly popular as a tourist destination in general by both Swiss and foreign tourists.
 
Over the course of 2014, ZT itself was responsible for arranging 823 overnight stays, compared with 1,357 in 2013. The ZT website was also downloaded fewer times in 2014 than in 2013, namely 250,000 times compared with 324,000, though this can be partially explained by an initial bad connection to Google, and bad weather may have also been a reason. What is encouraging is that lots more people have been downloading the website in the first few months of this year, so it could well be that, by the end of the year, ZT will achieve its 400,000 target.
 
As to the nationalities of those enjoying a visit to Zug, the number of overnight stays by Swiss people increased by 8% to 153,850 and the number of those by Germans was up by 3% to 43,262. The number of overnight stays by visitors from the United Kingdom, namely 18,364, represented an increase of 21%, though by far the greatest increase, a staggering 128%, was as a result of the 17,891 overnight stays by Chinese people. This compares with "just" 7,852 in 2013.
 
What also proved most popular over the course of 2014 were visits arranged by ZT on behalf of companies, for example to farms and distilleries and such like, an area which continues to show great potential.