The visit rate of hotels and guesthouses exceeded 450 000 guests in February, with a higher number of foreigners than before the pandemic

Accommodation providers enjoyed their best February in the last five years. However, the total visit rate of hotels and guesthouses in Slovakia still lagged behind the values of the pre-pandemic year 2020 by 7%. Only Žilinský kraj exceeded the historical records of February´s visit rate again.

Over 450 000 guests visited tourism accommodation establishments in Slovakia in February this year, which was by 6% more than in the corresponding period last year. It was the most successful February for accommodation providers since the outbreak of the pandemic. However, compared to the record February 2020 (the last February not affected by the pandemic), accommodation providers still lacked almost 7%. Guests spent by 8.1% more nights in hotels and guesthouses than a year ago, their number exceeding 1.2 million. The average length of stay in February was 2.7 nights.

Almost two-thirds of the structure of accommodated guests was made up of domestic visitors, their number increased by over 5% year-on-year to 281 000 guests. Compared to the record February 2020, more than 11% of domestic clientele was missing. The number of foreign visitors increased by almost 8% year-on-year to 169 000. This February surpassed the record-breaking 2020 in the number of foreigners in hotels and guesthouses by more than 2%.

Development of tourism in the regions of the Slovak Republic

Total visitor numbers increased year-on-year in 7 out of SR 8 regions, from 2.1% in Košický kraj to 11.6% in Banskobystrický kraj. The number of guests decreased only in Bratislavský kraj, by less than 2%. The most guests visited the regions that have long been at the top of the visitor rankings and have good conditions for winter tourism and skiing. Žilinský kraj dominated with 135 thousand guests and Prešovský kraj with 95 thousand visitors. Together, these two regions represented more than half of the total visitor numbers in the Slovak Republic. At the same time, these two regions were also the most popular by domestic visitors, with approximately 70 thousand Slovak guests staying in each of them. However, they differed in the number of foreigners, who were significantly fewer in Prešovský kraj. In Žilinský kraj, their number increased by more than 13% year-on-year.

The third most popular place was Bratislavský kraj with a 17% share of the national number of the accommodated guests, where more than 76 thousand guests were accommodated. As the only region, the vast majority of visitors here were foreign guests.

The only one among the 8 SR regions that currently had the best February in history this year was Žilinský kraj. The number of guests was even by 6% higher than in February 2020, just before the pandemic. The main reason was higher number of foreign visitors up to a third than in the record February 2020.

The other regions lagged behind their best February´s visitors, from 5% in Prešovský kraj to 24% in Trenčiansky kraj.