Business Valuation: Hospitality & Hotels

The average Swiss hotel business is valued at 3.0 - 5.0× EBITDA on a statutory (tax-based) basis and 4.0 - 7.0× EBITDA in actual transactions. The spread between statutory and deal multiples represents an arbitrage opportunity for informed buyers. The market trend is rated as recovering, with an arbitrage gap rated as medium; overnight stays reached a record 43.9 million in 2025 but fell 0.7% in the first half of 2026. In this niche the multiple depends on whether the business owns or leases its building, how many days a year it is open, how much renovation is overdue, and how dependent it is on foreign guests, who accounted for 51.9% of overnight stays in 2025.

Key valuation drivers include: Record demand: 43.9 million hotel overnight stays in 2025, the third record in a row (BFS HESTA); Balanced guest mix: 21.1 million overnight stays by Swiss residents and 22.8 million by foreign guests in 2025. Factors that can compress valuations include: Small mountain hotels: 27 rooms per open establishment in Valais and 24 in Ticino, against 66 in Zurich (2025); Lower occupancy outside the cities: 50.8% in Ticino and 46.2% in St. Gallen, against 68.6% in Zurich. Deal multiples typically range from 4.0 - 7.0× EBITDA, but actual prices vary significantly based on customer concentration, management quality, revenue predictability, and geographic reach within Switzerland's 26 cantons.

The Federal Statistical Office counted 3,206 enterprises running hotels, inns and guesthouses in 2024, with 70,125 employees and 57,953 full-time equivalents (BFS STATENT); including holiday homes, campsites and other accommodation the count was 5,091. The accommodation statistics counted 3,963 open hotel and spa establishments with 135,168 rooms in 2025 (BFS HESTA). Valais has the most hotel enterprises (498), followed by Bern (467), Graubünden (454), Ticino (220), Vaud (210) and Zurich (208). The February 2026 edition's ~27,000 companies, ~4,600 classified hotels and ~250,000 employees mixed hotels with restaurants and could not be traced; restaurants and caterers are covered in a separate report.

No published statistic measures the age of Swiss hotel owners or how many hotels lack a successor. The February 2026 edition's 40-50 Alpine hotels facing closure and its "70%+ independent operators" had no source and are removed, as are its valuation multiples, which did not match the ranges used on this site. The statistics show the outcome instead: hotel enterprises fell from 4,209 in 2011 to 3,206 in 2024 while employment held at about 70,000, and open establishments fell by 864 between 2010 and 2025 while rooms increased by about 6,300. Demand for advice on transactions rose too: the Swiss Society for Hotel Credit completed 89 advisory mandates in 2025, up from 57. Small hotels are the most exposed; in the second quarter of 2026 they had the lowest occupancy (53.9%) and the steepest revenue decline (-3.8%) in the KOF/GastroSuisse survey. A buyer should separate the property from the operating business, check the renovation backlog and the number of opening days, test the dependence on foreign guests, and, for foreign buyers or conversions, confirm what Lex Koller and the second-home rules allow. Deal multiples for the sector typically run 4.0 - 7.0× EBITDA.

Four trends define the sector in 2026: (1) Fewer hotels, more rooms — The number of hotel enterprises fell from 4,209 in 2011 to 3,206 in 2024 while their employment stayed at about 70,000 (BFS STATENT). (2) A record 2025, a softer 2026 — Hotels recorded a third consecutive record of 43.9 million overnight stays in 2025 (+2.6%), with net room occupancy of 56.8%. (3) Cities fill rooms, lakes and mountains gained revenue — City hotels are larger and fuller: 66 rooms per establishment and 68.6% occupancy in Zurich, 88 rooms and 67.9% in Geneva, against 24 rooms and 50.8% in Ticino (BFS HESTA 2025). (4) Groups and lenders fund the upgrade — The Swiss Society for Hotel Credit approved CHF 37.4 million of loans in 2025, up from CHF 30.8 million, for projects with about CHF 210 million of investment, and it completed 89 advisory mandates, against 57 a year earlier.

The principal acquisition risks are: (1) Demand turned in 2026: overnight stays fell 0.7% in the first half and foreign stays 2.0%; (2) Long-haul Asian demand has not recovered: stays by guests from China were still 43.1% below 2019 in 2025; (3) Hotel revenue fell 2.7% in the first quarter of 2026 (KOF/GastroSuisse). Buyers should conduct thorough due diligence on customer concentration, regulatory compliance, and key-person dependencies. Deal multiples of 4.0 - 7.0× EBITDA may be discounted for firms with elevated risk profiles.

An indicative cost split for a Swiss hotel is: Personnel (wages, social contributions, temporary staff): 45%, Food and beverage purchases: 15%, Energy, utilities and maintenance: 8%, Distribution and marketing (booking platform commissions, advertising): 7%, Rent, lease and property costs: 10%, Other operating costs (insurance, IT, laundry, supplies): 5%, Profit margin (EBITDA): 10%. Indicative split for a Swiss hotel with a restaurant that leases its building. No published source gives this breakdown; the February 2026 edition attributed it to HotellerieSuisse and GastroSuisse averages and gave EBITDA margins of 15-20% for urban managed hotels, 5-8% for independent Alpine properties and over 25% for luxury resorts, none of which could be traced, so the attribution and the margins are withdrawn. How much of the margin is left depends mostly on who owns the building. MRH Switzerland AG reported EBITDAR of CHF 46.0 million, 23.6% of its CHF 195.4 million revenue in 2025, but EBITDA of only CHF 13.3 million, because rent and other items excluded from EBITDAR come off in between. Wages follow the national collective labour agreement for the hospitality industry (L-GAV). For a buyer, the first step is to separate the property from the operating business, because the same hotel can look highly profitable as an owner-occupier and marginal as a tenant.

Switzerland's hotels cluster in five regions: (1) Graubünden (GR) — 454 hotel enterprises with 11,251 employees in 2024, the largest hotel workforce of any canton (BFS STATENT). (2) Valais (VS) — 498 hotel enterprises, 15.5% of the national total, with 7,842 employees in 2024. (3) Bern (BE) — 467 hotel enterprises with 9,960 employees in 2024, the second-largest hotel workforce after Graubünden. (4) Zurich and Geneva (ZH/GE) — The city markets: 320 hotel enterprises with 12,075 employees in 2024. (5) Central Switzerland (LU/NW/OW/SZ/UR) — 318 hotel enterprises with 8,715 employees in 2024 and 4.33 million overnight stays in 2025. Room occupancy in 2025 was highest in Zurich (68.6%), Geneva (67.9%) and Basel-Stadt (64.8%), and lowest in Uri (43.2%) and St. Gallen (46.2%).