The camping boom, fueled by the new habits born with the pandemic, is pushing the Swiss Touring Club (TCS) to expand, aiming abroad. According to Oliver Grützner, head of the camping division of the TCS, the main targets are neighboring regions, such as the north shore of Lake Constance, the area south of Brissago or the Annecy region. Entry into these places would be considered a complement to the Swiss association.
The Swiss Touring Club has declared that it is not aiming for distant places, that it is not acquiring a campsite in Spain, and that it still wants to continue expanding starting from the borders of Switzerland. On its website, the association is already offering to take over other establishments (also outside Switzerland), for example in the event of succession, relocation, reorganization or abandonment by the previous owners.
What is concrete about this new initiative? The Swiss Touring Club is evaluating about 20 projects and the board of directors has already approved the project for three new campsites, all located in Ticino, which will move into the construction phase. The head of the camping division of Tcs, Oliver Grützner, explained that the Olivone campsite should open next year, the one in the Verzasca Valley in 2025, while a glamping village with 25-30 lodgings will be built near the swimming pool in Carona, with scheduled to open in 2026. In addition, another plant will be added in Graubünden.
Part of the expansion ambition of the Swiss Touring Club is to ensure that every campsite is profitable, while also recognizing the particular economic moment. Again Grützner explained that a generational change is underway in the camping sector after 50 or 60 years of continuous and continuous activity, a moment that obviously requires action on the part of the association.
An example of a Tcs renovation is represented by the La Tène campsite: recently acquired, it will open in 2026 after being completely renovated. The municipality of the village located on the shores of Lake Neuchâtel wants the site to have more tourist weight, aiming for a better combination of services. Currently, the campsite is occupied by over 170 permanent customers, but Grützner pointed out that while they occupy 25% of the pitches, they contribute only 15% of the turnover. For this reason, a reduction in the number of “fixed” pitches has been envisaged to create more tourist pitches. Furthermore, there will be around 30 bungalows. A further challenge will be represented by the supply of electricity, which has increased due to the stiffening of temperatures in winter and summer, but also due to the increase in guests who drive Teslas.
In 2022, TCS had approximately 900,000 overnight stays at its campgrounds, an 11% drop from the all-time record set in 2021, when attendance exceeded one million for the first time. However, 2022 is still the second best year in TCS history, with an increase of 43% compared to 2019, the last pre-Covid year.
The turnover of the association’s camping segment in 2022 reached 35 million francs, which is similar to the record year of 2021. This highlights the remarkable progress that the camping sector has made in recent years.
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