Another Nr. 1 Ranking for Switzerland - This Time: Tourism!

The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently published its first Travel and Tourism Report Competitiveness Report, which ranked Switzerland Nr. 1, closely followed by Austria and Germany. While Switzerland does not lead the rankings in the three subindices "Regulatory Framework" (Nr. 1: Singapore), "Business Environment and Infrastructure" (Nr. 1: USA) and "Human, Cultural and Natural Resources" (Nr. 1: Austria), the country is positioned at a constant second place which makes it the overall leader in the ranking.

Even though tourism is a rather small sector in Switzerland (with spendings by foreign tourists of CHF 13.7 bn 2005, the industry can not challenge the revenues of most large Swiss companies), the study emphasizes that Switzerland (together with Spain) is the only high-income country having declared tourism a prioritized sector.

According to the WEF, the following factors were especially important for Switzerland's Nr. 1 position in the ranking: the country's first-class security and hygienic standards, quality of human resources due to a high number of unrivalled and prestigious hotel management schools, infrastructure as well as the country's cultural and natural resources (Switzerland is home to six UNESCO World Heritage sites).

As far as my own experience is concerned, I think that the outcome of this report is more than justified, even though I personally believe that the Swiss tourism sector has to conduct considerable investments - especially when it comes to ski resorts - in order to stay competitive when compared to other skiing countries (for example, Austria's ski resorts have invested heavily in their infrastructure during the last years - during the current season, €523 mn have been invested into ski lift infrastructure). An interesting article on Swiss tourism and its challenges was recently published by Zurich's leading newspaper, NZZ.