The number of visitors to hotels and guests houses with accommodation services continued to rise, in two regions the number of domestic visitors reached numbers before the pandemic

The number of visitors to hotels and guests houses with accommodation services reached almost 300,000 in March. It was nine times more than a year ago, but still a third less than in the last March before the pandemic (in 2019). The number of domestic visitors in Žilinský and Prešovský kraj already moved towards the high number of March 2019.

In March, 299,000 visitors used the accommodation services in tourism, the number of visitors increased by a fifth compared to the previous month. In a year-on-year comparison, the number of visitors recorded a 8.8-fold increase in hotels, guests houses with accommodation services and other tourism establishments, however, it is only an impact of the continuing complete lockdown at the beginning of 2021.

The visitors spent 810 thousand nights in the accommodation establishments, the average length of stay was 2.7 nights in March. In the same period before the pandemic (March 2019), the number of visitors to hotels, guests houses with accommodation services and other tourism establishments reached 434,000 visitors.

In March, visitors were also attracted by favourable conditions in winter tourist resorts and ongoing skiing and stays in the mountains. The most visited were Žilinský and Prešovský kraj, in which almost half of the visitors were accommodated (141,000). At the same time, these two regions already succeed in attracting almost the same number of domestic visitors as in the pre-pandemic March of 2019; currently, their number decreased only almost by 8 %.

Bratislavský kraj was in third place in the total number of visitors, followed by Banskobystrický kraj. As in February, most visitors was recorded in the districts typical of winter tourism and the districts of the capital Bratislava - Poprad, Liptovský Mikuláš, Bratislava I, Žilina, Ružomberok, Bratislava II and Brezno.

At the same time, a third of the total number of visitors were foreigners, 87,000 in March. Their targets were most often Bratislavský, Žilinský and Prešovský kraj. In Bratislavský kraj, foreigners again accounted for more than half of the visitors, a higher share in the number of foreign visitors was recorded in Košický kraj (36 %). In the pre-pandemic March of 2019, more than 155,000 foreigners visited Slovakia.

In total, 736,000 visitors were accommodated in tourism establishments in the first quarter of 2022. Compared to the same period before the pandemic (March 2019), their number was still 40 % lower. The number of foreigners exceeded half of the values in 2019. At the same time, visitors spent a total of 2 million nights in accommodation establishments, in 2019 it was almost 3.5 million nights.

Quarterly data: Development of accommodation establishments

In the first quarter, a total of 4,224 accommodation establishments provided accommodation services in Slovakia. There were 67 thousand bedrooms and 177 thousand bed places (including camping places) available to visitors. Net occupancy rate of permanent bed places accounted for 19.7 % in the first quarter, and occupancy rate of rooms for 23.4 %. The average number of available bedrooms per day was 50,000, the average number of permanent bed places available per day was 113,000 permanent beds.

Accommodation establishments recorded turnover (excluding VAT) in the amount of EUR 67 million in the first quarter of 2022, a 7-fold increase compared to the first quarter of 2021. The predominant part of turnover was represented by domestic visitors (68.2 %), foreign visitors represented less than a third of the total turnover in the first quarter. The highest turnover were recorded in Žilinský and Prešovský kraj, together these two regions reported more than half of the total turnover in the SR.