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After suffering the unfortunate fate of being cancelled halfway through its 2020 event, Switzerland’s most important camping and caravanning event the Suisse Caravan Salon bounced back with aplomb in 2021. The 54^th edition of the event recently took place from 28 October to 1 November in Bern, Switzerland and attracted more than 50,000 visitors during its five-day duration. The attendance far exceeded the expectations of event organiser BernExpo Groupe – exhibition director Mario Kovacevic said: “With a number of 50,600 visitors, we are drawing an extremely positive balance. We received countless positive feedbacks from both visitors and exhibitors. Everyone was happy to meet live again and to be able to look at the latest trends. Our exhibition team felt it was a great privilege to be able to host this Suisse Caravan Salon.”

The motto of the show this year was ‘everything to discover the world’ to acknowledge the freedom that camping and caravanning has offered so many people throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and into the future. The positivity around the show matched the vibe that is currently being felt in the Swiss market ­­– Caravaning Suisse president Christoph Hostettler explained: “In the first nine months of 2021, there was an increase of 25 percent in new registrations of motor homes and 6 percent in caravans. Accordingly, we could hope that camping and caravanning fans would come to the BernExpo site in large numbers. Fortunately, this is exactly what happened.”

A reaction of satisfaction 

BernExpo Groupe reported that the exhibitor space at Suisse Caravan Salon 2021 was fully booked weeks before the show took place, with about 330 exhibitors on the floorplan. Satisfaction among these exhibitors was understandably high, as Yellowcamper CEO Thomas Freiburghaus put it: “The Suisse Caravan Salon 2021 has shown us all that the trade fair format is alive and well when you get it right. The feedback from the visitors is overwhelming and also a nice sign for our employees, some of whom are on site voluntarily. Together we were able to celebrate a great success.”

Meanwhile Beat Amstutz, managing director of LEXA Wohnmobile, added: “The trade public showed great interest, and we noticed that this year the vehicles in the higher price segment were more popular. Our recipe for success of advice, repairs and optimisation of the vehicles is also very well received here.”