Swiss Lift Co’s Go Straight Into Winter After A Successful Summer Season

With a good October result, the Swiss cable car companies are completing a successful summer season. This is confirmed by the final figures from the summer season monitoring, which was carried out by the Swiss Cable Car Industry Association (SBS).

For the summer season monitoring, Seilbahnen Schweiz, the association of the Swiss cable car industry, collects the number of guests (first admissions) and the turnover for passenger transport from 60 members from all over Switzerland for the period between May and October. The data is now available for the last month of October and for the entire 2023 summer season. The final balance over the entire summer season is very positive. If you look at the period between May and October, cable car companies can report an increase of 10% more guests and 15% more sales than in the same period last year.

The largest increase in first-time entries was recorded in Central Switzerland (+22%) and the Bernese Oberland (+17%). But most other regions also ended the summer season with positive figures. Only in Graubünden and in the Vaud and Friborg Alps did the number of guests decrease slightly compared to the previous year. “While many cable car companies struggled a bit in midsummer, they were able to attract particularly large numbers of guests in early summer and autumn. Overall, we are very satisfied and see once again that the summer and autumn seasons are becoming increasingly important for cable car companies. “The strong increase in typical excursion mountains is also significant,” summarizes Berno Stoffel, director of Cable Cars Switzerland.

Significantly more guests on large trains

For summer seasonal monitoring, a comparison of the number of guests by company size, measured by passenger traffic revenue, was also carried out. It can be seen that for large cable car companies with annual sales of over CHF 10 million, the guest volume has increased by 14%. Medium and small companies are sometimes slightly above and sometimes slightly below the previous year's level.

5-year average far exceeded

The long-term trend of Swiss cable car companies is also positive, as the evaluation of the 5-year average confirms. A comparison between the now completed summer season and the average of the last five years shows that the number of guests increased by 15% and sales increased by 28% (Fig. 3). This corresponds to the general trend that the summer season has become more important in recent years; The industry now generates 25% of annual sales during the summer season. This means that the share of summer sales has doubled in the last 10 years. The increase in guests in the regions ranges between 29% in Central Switzerland and 5% in Eastern Switzerland, while Graubünden is the only region to record a slight decrease of 2%. «We are pleased about the successful conclusion of the summer/autumn season. And with the recent onset of winter in the mountains, many mountain railways are already preparing at full speed for the coming winter season,” says Stoffel.

Straight into the winter season

This year the transition from summer to winter season is smooth for some destinations. Many areas have received a nice package of fresh snow of up to a meter in the last week. The glacier ski areas in Saas-Fee and Zermatt have already started winter operations, other ski areas are starting winter next weekend such as Arosa-Lenzerheide, Davos, Diavolezza, Glacier 3000, Nendaz-Veysonnaz, Schilthorn and Verbier. More will follow in the coming weeks. “An early start to winter with cold temperatures like now is a blessing for the mountain railways, generates bookings and promotes advance sales,” says Berno Stoffel optimistically.

Changes compared to the same period last year, cumulative values ​​from the start of the season to October 31, 2023

Changes in first entries by company size (passenger traffic revenue) compared to the comparable period in the previous year, from the start of the season to October 31, 2023

Changes to the 5-year average, cumulative values ​​from the start of the season to October 31, 2023