The UEFA Women’s EURO 2025 in Switzerland brought us great football, packed stadiums, and an incredible atmosphere across the country. Besides leaving lasting memories, the tournament might also give a boost to the Swiss economy. While long-term effects of such an event are generally hard to measure, we can estimate the effects on the Swiss economy during the tournament itself.
Payment data from Visa showed that the cities Sion and Thun especially benefitted from the EURO.[1] In this blog, we look at how the tournament affected spending in St. Gallen. For this purpose, we use expenditure data provided by Worldline Schweiz AG, the same data used in the Monitoring Consumption Switzerland (MCS) dashboards.
St. Gallen hosted three games of the EURO 25 between Friday, July 4th, and Sunday, July 13th.[2] We use the two-week period between Wednesday, July 2nd, and Tuesday, July 15th, to estimate the effects on expenditures as supporters might arrive before the first game and potentially stay longer than the last game. The expenditures during this period are then compared to the same period in 2024 (i.e., Wednesday, July 3rd, 2024, until Tuesday, July 16th, 2024). Note that the school holiday period started at similar points in time in 2024 (July 6) and 2025 (July 5) in the canton St. Gallen.
Figure 1: Year-on-year changes of expenditures during the UEFA Women’s EURO in St. Gallen by cardholder origin, at the point-of-sale (POS).
Notes: Expenditure growth rates in St. Gallen between Wednesday, July 2nd, 2025, and Tuesday, July 15th, 2025, relative to expenditures in the same two weeks in 2024. “Other” contains all further expenditures.
The blue bars in Figure 1 show that expenditures in supermarkets (Retail: Food), restaurants and hotels increased during the games in St. Gallen. For restaurants and hotels, this was particularly driven by foreign cards. Expenditures in Other Retail, however, decreased compared to the previous year. In total, increased expenditures by tourists in St. Gallen almost offset slightly lower domestic spending, such that total expenditures remained practically unchanged.
Figure 2: Contribution to year-on-year changes of expenditures during the UEFA Women’s EURO in St. Gallen by foreign cardholders, at the point-of-sale (POS).
Notes: The figure shows the contribution of the different countries’ cardholders to the year-on-year changes of foreign expenditures in St. Gallen. For example, out of the 101% growth of foreign expenditures in restaurants, approximately 70 percentage points are due to supporters from Great Britain.
Figure 2 takes a closer look at the growth rates of expenditures by foreign cardholders presented in Figure 1. It shows the contribution of different countries to the growth rates. By far the largest contribution came from tourists from Great Britain. It is important to note, however, that Wales played twice in St. Gallen whereas England, Germany, France, and Poland only played one game each. Hence, one would expect that cardholders from Great Britain (including Wales and England) contributed the most to the expenditure growth. Quantitatively, the contribution of British cardholders has been more than twice those of the other foreign cardholders. Moreover, the British seemed most active by far with their spending in the restaurants and bars—not just hungry for goals!
Overall, our findings indicate that the games of the UEFA Women’s EURO 2025 in St. Gallen were beneficial for restaurants and hotels. Tourists, especially from Great Britain, more than offset the lower domestic spending. It seems that the British truly enjoyed St. Gallen, as also reported here.
[1] For references in the news on this topic, click here or here.
[2] Germany – Poland (04.07.2025), Wales – France (09.07.2025), Wales – England (13.07.2025).