News · 19 October 2026
Average hotel price in Switzerland: 148 francs a guest night
Switzerland's Federal Statistical Office has put a number on what a guest night earns: 148.19 francs on average last winter, 460.01 at five stars, 172.70 in the mountains. Here's how to read the figures, and why hotel students learn to.
There's no official average hotel room price in Switzerland. The closest official figure is 148.19 francs: what Swiss hotels earned per guest per night in winter 2025/26, from November 2025 to April 2026.[1] An overnight stay is one guest for one night, children included, so a double room with two guests counts as two overnight stays.[7] The figure is net revenue, without breakfast and VAT, divided by the number of overnight stays.[2] That's about $178 at the Federal Reserve's rate of 0.8308 francs per dollar on 9 October 2026.[3]
The number comes from HESTA-Mon, an experimental statistic the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) published on 10 September 2026.[1] Over the season, hotels took in 2.80 billion francs from accommodation, 2.6% more than the winter before, while revenue per overnight stay rose 1.4%.[1] So the growth came partly from more nights and partly from each night earning more. The sector counted 18.7 million overnight stays that winter, a record, 1.1% up on a year earlier.[4]
These winter figures are still provisional. HESTA-Mon comes out twice a year, and the April edition carries the final results for the previous year,[2] so the definitive numbers for this winter are due in April 2027. The final figures for 2025 put the whole calendar year at 139.75 francs per overnight stay, and the summer season, May to October 2025, at 134.76.[1]
How much does a hotel night earn by star category and region?
Here's what each group earned, with the change on the winter before and the FSO's 95% margin:[1]
| Hotels | Francs per overnight stay | Change (95% margin) |
|---|---|---|
| All hotels | 148.19 | +1.4% (±0.7) |
| 5 stars | 460.01 | +6.1% (±1.7) |
| 4 stars | 150.35 | +0.9% (±1.1) |
| 3 stars | 107.34 | −0.6% (±0.8) |
| 1 and 2 stars, and categories without stars | 84.32 | −3.4% (±1.8) |
| Not classified | 96.02 | −2.1% (±1.8) |
| Mountain zone | 172.70 | +4.0% (±1.2) |
| Metropolis zone | 144.71 | −0.2% (±1.2) |
| City zone | 113.06 | −2.5% (±1.3) |
| Countryside zone | 104.24 | −1.9% (±1.5) |
The top of the market pulled away. A five-star night earned about three times the average, and five-star hotels took in 6.0% more from accommodation than a year before, while the group of one- and two-star hotels and categories without stars took in 9.8% less.[1] And the mountains beat the cities. Hotels in the mountain zone earned more per overnight stay than in any of Switzerland Tourism's other three zones, and with 1.45 billion francs they brought in just over half of the winter's accommodation revenue.[1][2]
Why does a night earn more in January than in November?
Split the season by month and the value of a night follows the calendar:[1]
| Month | Francs per overnight stay | Accommodation revenue, change on a year earlier |
|---|---|---|
| November 2025 | 128.14 | +0.1% |
| December 2025 | 155.06 | +7.9% |
| January 2026 | 168.29 | +5.9% |
| February 2026 | 158.73 | +3.8% |
| March 2026 | 140.49 | −6.1% |
| April 2026 | 129.57 | +2.5% |
December was the busiest month, with 3.56 million overnight stays, 6.8% more than a year earlier.[4] Yet January, with fewer overnight stays, earned the most per night.[1][4] From March, demand fell. Overnight stays dropped 5.2% that month, and the FSO puts the fall in foreign demand mainly down to visitors from Asia, who stayed away because of the conflict in the Middle East.[4] Swiss guests stayed away too: domestic overnight stays fell 5.7% in March.[4] Accommodation revenue for March was 6.1% lower.[1]
That's the problem revenue management deals with. A hotel can't keep tonight's empty room for next week, so it has to decide what to charge, night by night, against demand it can only forecast. The FSO's tables add up the results of those decisions across the country.
What does this mean for you in the final year of a hotel degree?
You'll have met the subject well before then. In the BHMS bachelor, you take Revenue Management in Year 2, next to Front Office Operations Management and Digital Marketing.[5] In the final year, your six modules include Hotel Operations Management, Strategic Management in Hotel & Hospitality Industry and Hospitality Business Concepts.[6]
Why read a national statistic when a hotel has its own booking data? Because your own figures only tell you whether you did better than last year. The FSO's tell you whether the market did too. Say a four-star hotel's revenue per night rose 1% last winter: it roughly kept pace with its category, whose estimate rose 0.9%. A five-star hotel with the same 1% fell well behind a segment that grew 6.1%.[1]
The margin matters as much as the number. Every HESTA-Mon figure comes with a 95% confidence interval, and the FSO warns that these can still be fairly large when you compare two periods.[1][2] In the first table, the changes for four-star and three-star hotels and for the metropolis zone are all smaller than their margin, so you can't tell them apart from no change at all. Saying "we don't know yet" is part of reading numbers well.
After Semester 5 comes Semester 6, your third six-month paid internship. In Switzerland it pays CHF 2,390 a month gross, before deductions.[6] You graduate with a degree awarded jointly by BHMS and Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, UK.[6] And a direct entry into the third year is possible.[6]
None of this will set a hotel's prices on your first day. But the two questions behind these tables, "compared with what?" and "how sure are we?", belong in any job with a budget.
For your next step, the BA in Hotel Management page sets out the final year's modules and its paid internship, and the internships page shows how the placements work.