The number of guests visiting hotels and guesthouses in Slovakia exceeded 410 thousand guests in January 2025

The number of guests visiting tourism accommodation establishments increased by 10% year-on-year. The total number of guests was 8% from the record-breaking pre-COVID January 2020, but the number of guests visiting Žilinský kraj exceeded even this most successful tourism season.

In the first month of the year, almost 412 000 guests visited tourism accommodation establishments in Slovakia, which was by 10% more than in the corresponding period last year. The first month of 2025 was the most successful January in terms of visitors since the outbreak of the pandemic. However, compared to the record-breaking January 2020 (the last January not affected by the pandemic), accommodation providers still lacked 8%. Guests spent more than 8% more nights in hotels and guesthouses than a year ago, their number exceeded 1 million, the average length of stay in January was 2.5 nights.

Domestic visitors made up almost two-thirds of the number of the accommodated guests, their number increased by almost 8% year-on-year to 256 thousand guests. The number of domestic visitors was lower by 9% than the record-breaking January 2020. Foreign visitors increased by over 14% year-on-year to 156 thousand accommodated guests. However, the number of foreigners in hotels and guesthouses was not sufficient for 2020, falling behind by over 6%.

Development of tourism in the SR regions

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 122 thousand guests and Prešovský kraj with 91 thousand visitors. Together, these two regions represented more than half of the total visitor numbers in the SR. Both recorded over 65 thousand domestic guests. They differed only in the number of foreigners, who were significantly fewer in Prešovský kraj. In third place was Bratislavský kraj with a 19% share of the national number of the accommodated guests, the only region where more than half of the visitors were foreign guests.

Total number of visitors was higher year-on-year in 7 out of 8 SR regions, from 0.1% in Trenčiansky kraj to 13.6% in Žilinský kraj. Only in Nitriansky kraj dropped the visitor numbers by more than 6%. The current visit rate in Žilinský kraj was higher than in the record January 2020, by 6%. Another region with approximately the same visit rate as in January 2020 was Prešovský kraj, this currently lacked less than 3% of the record. The other regions were still double-digits behind their best January visit rate.