Travelers From These 10 Countries Have the Biggest Vacation Budgets

Some hotels these days are hiring Mandarin-speaking staff in their all-out effort to woo the omnipresent Chinese traveler, but don’t forget the Swiss.

After all, the Swiss are big spenders on vacations.

Why pursue Swiss travelers? TripAdvisor’s TripBarometer survey found that Swiss travelers’ vacation budgets in 2013 were $11,619 on average, and that was the highest of any country by far.

The survey did not ask travelers to break down their vacation budgets such as whether it includes spending for shopping or other activities, but merely asked how much did the individual spend on travel.

The Swiss vacation budget was nearly $1,100 higher than that of Australian travelers, who ranked second in 2013. U.S. travelers’ average vacation budget in 2013 was a relatively lowly $8,207, and that ranked fifth on the TripBarometer Top 10.

In fact, the Chinese traveler didn’t even make the TripBarometer top 10 list in terms of the size of their travel budgets, which was $5,085 in 2013. Some studies have shown Chinese spend to be higher in certain markets.

And, yes, China has a population of 1.35 billion compared with Switzerland’s 7.7 million so marketing efforts can still be wisely directed toward the Chinese traveler even though they are not amongst the top 10 travel spenders.

Top Vacation Budgets by Nationality

But, if you are a tourism company and want to be a niche player, the big-spending Swiss traveler might be a prudent target.

Research firm Ipsos conducted the TripBarometer survey for TripAdvisor. The online survey took place February 14 to March 10, 2014, and got responses from 50,637 TripAdvisor website users in 32 markets, and Ipsos online panelists who planned a trip online in the last 12 months. Some 10,370 people in the lodging industry from TripAdvisor’s database also participated in the survey.