Visual showing Search trends in Switzerland

Top Search Trends for Swiss Cities

Here is what Google Trends tells us about a few trending search topics for five Swiss cities (Geneva, Lausanne, Bern, Basel and Zurich) globally in the past five years (2017-2021) when it comes to topics such as art & entertainment, shopping, food & drinks, running & walking, cycling, and business & industrial. 

 

The Most Searches for Art & Entertainment Scores Basel

According to Google Trends, Basel got the most searches for art and entertainment topics among other Swiss cities in the past five years. Followed by Bern, Geneva, Zurich, and finally Lausanne. 

No wonder as Basel is the most important exhibition centre in Switzerland and among the most important ones in Europe. The city plans and organises over 25 attractive trade and consumer fairs on public lands, and is home to the Kunstmuseum, Switzerland’s largest museum and some of the greatest Swiss galleries, museums, opera houses and theatres. The city is deemed a true citadel of culture and one of the hottest destinations in Europe for art lovers. 

The most popular search trends in Basel for arts and entertainment are: 

  • Art Basel, the world’s most important trade fair for modern and contemporary art
  • Hooper Ausstellung; Search for artist Edward Hopper exhibition
  • Swissbau, the most important meeting place for the construction and real estate industry in Switzerland.

The Swiss City of Shopping is Geneva

According to Google Trends, Geneva has got the most searches when it comes to shopping related topics, followed by Bern, Basel, Zurich and finally Lausanne in the past five years.  

Geneva is a major shopping destination in Europe, despite its small size, after London and Paris. It offers a staggering collection of designer retail stores and world-famous brands.

The most popular search trends for shopping in Geneva: 

  • Franck Muller 
  • Geneve Encheres Catalogue  
  • Dong Ho Hublot 

The Most Gourmand Swiss City is Zurich

 

According to Google Trends, Zurich has the most searches for food and drinks, followed by Lausanne, Bern, Basel, and finally Geneva in the past five years. 

Zurich is emerging among Europe’s hottest food destinations with its numerous upscale and traditional restaurants and the rise of talented young chefs looking to make their mark. In addition, new restaurants and cafes offer quality and mouthwatering menus. 

Notably, the Zurich food scene has been growing with the city’s efforts in transforming the industrial west side, which is now one of the city’s distinctive food destinations. 

The most popular searches for restaurants in Zurich are: 

  • Rosi restaurant 
  • Restaurant Blume 
  • Restaurant Luigi (For Luigia restaurant)
  • Restaurant Falken 

Running and Walking Leaders are Lausanne & Bern

According to Google Trends, Bern and Lausanne are the search walking and running leaders among the other Swiss cities, followed by Zurich, Basel and Geneva in the past five years. The cities offer long walking scenic paths, popular marathons and sports activities.

Every year, tens of thousands of runners, world and European champions register for the Bern Grand Prix, one of the largest running events in Switzerland. At the same time, the most ambitious prepare for ‘The most beautiful 10 miles run in the world’ that covers Bern’s most scenic attractions. Lake Thun and Interlaken area are two of Switzerland’s hot destinations for sports enthusiasts, which are both part of the Bern canton.  

On the other hand, Lausanne is the world HQ of the Olympics, home to around 50 international sports organisations. Additionally, it hosts various sports congresses and events continuosly. 

The most popular search trends for walking and running topics are: 

  • Marathon
  • 20K runs
  • Triathlon 
  • Walks in Bern 

For Cycling Topics the Swiss city is Bern

The Swiss capital Bern, is no less than a dream come true for cycling enthusiasts. Outdoor enthusiasts have tons of options with roughly 1,557 cycling routes, which make Bern a heaven on earth for all cyclists.

The most popular search trends in Bern for cycling topics are: 

  • Velo station; Searches for a bike station 
  • Bern Fahrradhelm; Searches for a bike helmet
  • Drahtesel; A bike shop in Bern

 

The Business and Industrial Hub is Geneva

Geneva is not merely a global city. It’s the second financial center in Switzerland, following Zurich and a global center for diplomacy due to the existence of several international organisations, such as the headquarters of numerous UN and Red Cross agencies. 

The city also hosts the greatest number of international establishments globally, making it the business and industrial hub of Switzerland.  

The related most popular business and industrial search topics in Geneva are: 

  • Employment 
  • Geneva watches
  • Post office 
  • Hotels

Zurich Is The Hub When It Comes To Finance Related Topics

According to Google Trends, Zurich has the most searches when it comes to finance-related topics, followed by Bern, Geneva, Basel and finally Lausanne in the past five years.  

After London, Zurich is the most important financial center in Europe and a top address for specialist financial congresses. A globally networked, highly competent, and extremely innovative city, despite having a relatively small population. 

Overall, 45 percent of the economic value created by the Swiss financial sector is generated in Zurich. In addition, the banks and insurance companies are key pillars of the local labour market.

The most popular search trends for finance-related services in Zurich:

  • Zurich Takaful; An Islamic kind of insurance
  • Zurich E Payment; log in to Zurich Insurance’s e-payment portal 
  • Sfera; Transformation workshops for organisations and team development
  • Zurich connect; Insurance company

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Want to give it a try?

Check out this simple tool by Marc Soares that let you explore Google Trends data in Data studio (in beta version). You only need to add a single or up to give search terms separated by commas to see results. 

 Following: A brief about Google Trends

Google Trends is a free data explorer that allows users to uncover and visualize trends in people’s search behaviour within Google Search, Google Images, Google News, Google Shopping and even YouTube

The trends data is an anonymised sample of user searches, no user personally is identified. Anyone with a Google account can use it to see search interest in a topic or search term over time, where it’s most searched, or what else people search for in connection with it.

The data is categorised according to the topic of the search query and aggregated (grouped together). It allows us to measure users’ interest in topics worldwide, right down to city-level geography.

Trends data can be filtered in two ways: First is real-time, a random sample of searches from the last seven days. The second is non-real-time, a random sample of the entire Google dataset from 2004 to ~36 hours ago. 

Why are Google Trends important for businesses? 

It’s a super useful tool, especially when it comes to finding niche audiences per geographic location, related product/ service categories, content marketing planning, monitoring competitor’s performance over your brand and more to growing your business lead generation online. 

Google Data trends enable users to view what queries have been popular in searches and their related topics. In addition, it reveals keywords seasonality; how frequently a particular search has been made over a period of time. That allows stores or ecommerce businesses, for example, to promote products around seasonal trends. 

The data is visualised on Google in the form of trend graphs, allowing users to analyse results for marketing or research purposes efficiently. For more information about Google methodology and trend data, please read Google’s FAQs.

It’s no wonder why successful businesses and organisations invest in SEO strategies that greatly emphasise content marketing combined with search trends. 

If you have questions or need help with content marketing and growing your business online, reach to us here

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Picture of Written by : Nadia Mojahed

Written by : Nadia Mojahed

Digital Marketing & AI/SEO Expert | Ambassador @Google's Women Techmakers

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