A new analysis from All the Rooms has revealed which Swiss towns and cities are home to the most Airbnbs. In some areas, holiday homes make up nearly a quarter of all apartments.
According to the findings, the tourist hotspot of Lauterbrunnen has the highest concentration of Airbnb properties in Switzerland. All the Rooms estimated that approximately 23,3 percent of homes in the town are offered on the platform, totalling around 841 apartments.
Holiday homes are most common in the mountains of southwestern Switzerland: Canton Valais sports eight of the 10 towns with the highest concentration of Airbnb properties. Ski resorts are particularly popular, with Saas-Fee, Zermatt, Interlaken and Grindelwald all featuring in the top 20. The fastest-growing town for the service is Brienz in Canton Bern, where the number of Airbnbs has more than doubled since 2020.
When it comes to the impact of tourism on Switzerland, Lauterbrunnen is seen as the exemplar. In 2024, as the country catered to a record number of visitors, officials in the town announced that they would try to impose an entrance fee for tourists. Supporters argued that the sheer number of visitors is hurting the quality of life for residents.
In terms of the town with the most Airbnb homes, Zurich took the top spot with an estimated 2.257 listings as of 2024. Geneva, Basel, Bern, Sitten and Lugano also feature high numbers of holiday homes.
Throughout its expansion, the biggest opposition to Airbnb has been found in Swiss cities. In recent years, larger cities like Geneva and Lucerne have become the first areas of Switzerland to severely restrict the service - though with mixed results.
While positive for tourist businesses, Airbnb has been accused of contributing to rising prices and acute shortages on the Swiss housing market, especially in the country's cities. Speaking to the Tages-Anzeiger, an expert from the Institute for Tourism in Valais, Miriam Scaglione, noted that studies from London, Barcelona and Boston show that Airbnb does contribute to rising rents.
The latest Swiss study, completed by the Tenants’ Association in 2017, found that the company is partly responsible for displacing local populations and contributing to rising rental costs.
Responding to the newspaper, Airbnb spokesperson Katrin Drebelow said it could not confirm All the Rooms' findings as it does not record how many listings are available in each town. She added that they have "no significant impact on the availability of affordable housing in most cities. The causes of housing shortages are complex and largely due to decades of lack of newly built housing and mass tourism driven by hotels."
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