Overtourism in Switzerland Tourism researcher warns against upper limits for hotel beds

Florian Eggli considers political interventions such as a cap on hotel beds to combat overtourism in Switzerland to be counterproductive. This is what the tourism expert says in an interview with the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung".

"If you limit the number of hotels, you encourage those groups who come by car for a quick photo and to buy a watch, but don't leave behind any sustainable added value," said the Lucerne tourism researcher when asked about the upper limit for hotel beds being discussed in Lucerne.

In his view, this would prevent a development towards higher-quality tourism - and miss the opportunity to attract precisely those guests that you actually want to attract, Eggli continued.

Bans also have the consequence that tourism flows "look for other routes", said the Head of the Institute for Tourism and Mobility at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts.

This can be seen, for example, in the regulation of the Airbnb accommodation platform, according to Eggli: "Since the city of Lucerne has restricted overnight accommodation, the supply has shifted to neighboring communities such as Kriens."

According to Eggli, the tourism industry has failed to emphasize the benefits of tourism for the local population. Instead, the economic importance of the industry had been emphasized for years. However, too little attention has been paid to the fact that high-quality tourism can also improve the quality of life of local people.

At the same time, Eggli sees parallels between the topics of immigration and overtourism: "Both topics are essentially about the fear of losing identity and a perceived stress of density," said the tourism researcher, referring to the SVP's 10 million Swiss initiative, which is also about stress of density.

Helene Laube