Women’s soccer scores big for Swiss tourism as spending surges 27%

The ongoing boom in women’s soccer is delivering a tourism spending boost to Switzerland this summer, as international visitors descend for the Euro 2025 tournament.

The number of travelers to Switzerland increased 12% year-on-year over the first week of the competition, according to figures shared exclusively with CNBC by payments giant Visa based on its cardholders. Visitor numbers from Germany, Poland and the Netherlands jumped 25%, arrivals from the U.K. rose 20%, while Italy and France saw upticks of 15% and 10%, respectively.

Spending meanwhile rose 27% for the week starting July 2 across the country’s host locations, which include Basel, Bern, Geneva and Zurich, as well as the smaller towns of St. Gallen, Sion and Thun.

Restaurant takings nearly doubled in Bern, as spending on entertainment more than tripled by the picturesque lakeside shores of Thun, which hosted Norway v Iceland and Spain v Belgium last week. Retail goods spending in Switzerland was up 30%, which Visa Europe’s Chief Marketing Officer Kim Kadlec said showed the tournament’s “powerful ripple effect, with an increase in real-time consumer spending across industries.”

The sight of packed major stadiums for women’s soccer matches — which are now expected throughout Euro 2025 — once seemed a long way off. The women’s game only started to become professionalized at a club level, key to overall talent development, in the 2010s.

Euro 2022, hosted by England, proved a landmark success in terms of reach as more than a decade of grassroots sporting investment, new and expanded broadcasting deals, and increased public and media interest came to fruition.

The nearly 90,000-strong attendance for England’s final against Germany at London’s Wembley Stadium was the highest-ever for either a men’s or women’s Euro final, tournament ticket sales increased almost fourfold to 60 million euros ($70 million), and global live TV viewership soared to 365 million from 178 million in 2017 and 116 million in 2013.

Breakthroughs for the global game have also included the equal pay deal agreed stateside in 2022 by US Soccer, and a five-year rights agreement with broadcasters Sky Sports and the BBC for the English Women’s Soccer League starting 2025 which is set to give unprecedented reach to matches. Those come even as deal sizes and overall funding and viewership remain dwarfed by the juggernaut of the men’s game, the world’s most-watched sport.

New records are already being broken at Euro 2025, with advance ticket sales totaling 600,000 and selling out 22 of 31 matches. Of those, 35% were purchased by international visitors, according to organizing body UEFA. 

“Already there are 61,000 Germans, 41,000 English, 16,000 French, 15,000 Dutch and 5,000 American fans,” Nadine Kessler, UEFA director for women’s football, said in a statement last month.

“I think we are at 114 nationalities and that’s exactly what we want – that’s unheard of in women’s football – and it shows we have taken the right lessons from England 2022.”

Ryan March, host of soccer podcast Alternative Wales, said he wanted to attend Euro 2025 to see a “huge moment” for his national team.

“The growth of the women’s game, particularly in Wales, is amazing to see… participation is up, crowds are up and having an international team qualifying for major tournaments will only push that even further,” March told CNBC.

The atmosphere at women’s matches has some positive differences compared to the men’s due to the different demographics in attendance, including many young children, he said. Switzerland has been “beautiful” with faultless public transport, he said, adding — “the only thing that lets it down is the sheer expense of everything.”

Eva Murray, a councillor for the Scottish city of Glasgow, said she was attending her third major women’s tournament as a neutral supporter after Scotland missed out on qualification, but still wanted to attend to experience the continued momentum in the game.

“The atmosphere has been brilliant overall, though the vibe did change a bit from place to place. In Lucerne it really felt like the tournament had taken over, people were talking about it, the branding was everywhere, and you got the sense the city had properly embraced it,” she told CNBC.

“Geneva felt a bit quieter, though to be fair we were there quite early in the group stage, and a few locals and tourists who weren’t heading to matches were still asking what was going on. Even then there was a friendliness and curiosity that’s so typical of women’s football, it always manages to create a warm and welcoming feeling that pulls people in.”