htr hotel revue<\/a> reported that Marc de Chassey, director general of the Geneva hotel group Manotel, estimated a 15\u201320 per cent fall in overnight stays linked to the international sector, while Xavier Rey, president of the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des h\u00f4teliers genevois, said occupancy in the three- and four-star segment was down by around five per cent.<\/p>\nEight months later, Rey says the roughly five per cent decline in occupancy has remained stable. \u201cWe have recently observed a change in travel trends. The conflict in the Middle East has also been a considerable blow. Many flights that transit through that region, such as those coming from India or Southeast Asia, have dropped.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a result, hotel owners are focusing on other markets, namely Europe, the US, South America and Switzerland, Rey adds.<\/p>\n
Geneva Airport has also registered a drop in routes popular with the diplomatic circuit from Geneva to the US and Africa, namely via Ethiopian Airlines, says Ignace Jeanneret, the airport’s spokesperson, without providing numbers.<\/p>\n
Ecolint loses students<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Ecolint, the International School of Geneva, has acknowledged a decrease in enrollment. \u201cThe financial pressures affecting the United Nations and the wider international sector are having a direct impact on some of the families we serve\u201d, says Mary Zacca\u00ef Parrinello, head of communication.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe began to see this particularly clearly during the 2024-2025 school year, when uncertainty around employment and funding translated very quickly into changes in enrolment and re-enrolment decisions,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n
The school reported 4,482 pupils in 2024-25, down from 4,530 the previous year and 4,566 in 2022-23.\u00a0As a result, more students have benefited from the institution\u2019s Relief Fund, designed to provide short-term assistance to families facing unexpected financial difficulty.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2025-2026, approximately 50 students from 35 families received support. The fund represented around CHF300,000, and for 2026-2027 we have increased it by 50 per cent\u201d, notes Zacca\u00ef Parrinello.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Ecolint is pressing ahead with a CHF41.6m redevelopment of its La Ch\u00e2taigneraie campus in the neighbouring canton of Vaud, home to a large expat community. The first phase began in summer 2025 and is scheduled for completion in 2027. The redevelopment has drawn scrutiny from some parents, who have called for an independent audit of the school\u2019s finances. \u201cThis project responds to needs identified over 10 years ago\u201d, emphasises Zacca\u00ef Parrinello. \u201cThe audit is in process; results are expected in November.\u201d<\/p>\n
A squeeze that is hard to quantify<\/p>\n
These testimonies come as no surprise to Vincent Subilia, director general of the Geneva Chamber of Commerce (CCIG). Employment in Geneva-based international organisations fell from 25,116 in 2023 to 22,823 in 2026, a 9.1 per cent decline, according to figures published by the Swiss authorities in September. \u201cThe contraction in international organisations is the largest collective redundancy Geneva has ever experienced. As a result, we are seeing a general slowdown in economic activity\u201d, says Subilia.<\/p>\n
\u201cInternational Geneva and local Geneva are part of the same ecosystem\u201d, adds Subilia. \u201cLocal businesses are currently being penalised by the weakening of international Geneva. One less UN meeting means one less flight, one less night in a hotel, fewer restaurant meals, fewer taxi journeys, and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Subilia remains optimistic: \u201cThe bet I am making is that the city, as the world\u2019s leading international hub, will endure. People come to Geneva looking for a place where trust can be built. There\u2019s no other place on earth that guarantees such diplomatic reliability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several causes at play<\/p>\n
In Grand-Saconnex, a municipality that hosts many international organisations, NGOs and diplomatic missions, the effects of job and budget cuts are hard to disentangle from the disruption caused by the ongoing construction of the tram line linking Geneva to Ferney-Voltaire. \u201cLocal businesses have been complaining more about the bulldozers than the lack of expat clientele,\u201d says B\u00e9reng\u00e8re Rosset, the municipality’s secretary general.<\/p>\n
S\u00e9bastien Dutoit, head of economic promotion, echoes that assessment: \u201cThe loss of business is being felt, but remains hard to correlate to the multilateral crisis.\u201d Some effects, he adds, may take time to surface because organisations can remain tied to office leases, while affected workers may not leave the region immediately.<\/p>\n
Two studies aim to quantify the economic loss<\/p>\n
Other sectors are expected to lose business in coming months, such as local cleaning, carpentry or relocation services, says Giovanni Ferro-Luzzi, an associate professor in economics at the University of applied sciences in management and the University of Geneva.<\/p>\n
He conducted a study back in 2024 on multinationals as well as international organisations, NGOs and permanent missions. Funded by the Fondation pour Gen\u00e8ve, the results concluded that the sector accounted for around 150,000 jobs, or 37 per cent of cantonal employment, and generated roughly 75,000 additional indirect jobs, bringing its total employment footprint close to 60 per cent.<\/p>\n
Since then, employment at international organisations has dropped significantly, warranting new analysis. \u201cWe are currently doing two studies on the same subject\u201d, Ferro-Luzzi tells Geneva Solutions.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne is a mandate from the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, following a parliamentary request by national councillor Vincent Maitre, who asked what the impact of USAid cuts on the non-market international sector was. The other is for the Fondation pour Gen\u00e8ve. The consortium, which includes the Confederation, will update the figures from the previous study. That study also includes the market sector, meaning multinational companies.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the research focuses on Geneva, where most of the sector is concentrated, it extends to Vaud and Bern. \u201cThe fiscal impact is not necessarily as large as one might imagine because the institutions themselves do not pay taxes, and many of the people working for them are under special taxation arrangements\u201d, says Ferro-Luzzi.<\/p>\n
The broader economic costs remain difficult to assess, but signs are accumulating across a variety of businesses. The study results expected next spring should clarify whether the scattered losses add up to a structural shift in Geneva\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For nearly two years, restaurants, hotels, and other parts of the local economy have grappled with the effects…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,296082,46,2012,124134],"class_list":["post-657961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-il","tag-international-geneva","tag-israel","tag-tourism","tag-usaid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}