Hotels and boarding houses were visited by more guests in July than in the first half of 2021

During the first holiday month, tourism in Slovakia was supported mainly by domestic visitors, there were a little more than a year ago and at the same time by a sixth more than in the same period before the pandemic. Despite the fact that, they did not reveal a two-thirds slump in number of foreign visitors, therefore the total number of visitors was almost 18 % lower than two years ago in July.

In July 2021, almost 585 thousand people visited accommodation establishments in tourism in Slovakia, visitors spent 1.8 million nights in accommodation establishments. The number of visitors recorded a 2.5 % year-on-year increase during the first holiday month, but the number of guests was 17.9 % lower than in the same period before the pandemic (compared to July 2019). Approximately the same number of guests used the services of hotels, boarding houses or other accommodation establishments a year ago, and two years ago it was a record 712 thousand people.

From the point of view of eight regions, four regions improved, year-on-year, in the number of visitors, but only one - Žilinský kraj managed to surpass the values from the period before the pandemic. It was the only region, which due to significantly increased number of domestic visitors could compensate still only one third of the number of foreign visitors and so exceeded by 3 % also the total number of visitors in July two years ago.

In July this year, domestic tourists mostly represented 83 % share of the total number of visitors (485 thousand people). The most domestic tourists visited Žilinský kraj (134 thousand people), Prešovský kraj (102 thousand people) and Banskobystrický kraj (71 thousand people). The number of domestic tourists was higher even than in the same period before the pandemic in five regions. An increase ranged from 8.8 % in Banskobystrický kraj to 44.6 % in Žilinský kraj.

In July 2021, accommodation services were used by a total of 99.5 thousand foreign visitors with almost 278 thousand overnight stays, the number of visitors was 31.8 % worse than a year ago, when tourism was dealing with the impacts of the first wave of the pandemic. Compared to 2019, this is a two-thirds drop in number of foreign visitors.

In total, from January to July 2021, 1.13 million visitors were accommodated in tourism establishments, which represents a year-on-year decrease of almost 40 % and at the same time a decrease of 68 % compared to 2019. Compared to the same period of 2019, a decrease in the number of foreign visitors recorded 87 % and  domestic visitors 57 %.

The Statistical Office will publish detailed data on the number of visitors to the accommodation establishments of the central DATAcube database in 2021 and for the previous three years by 15. October 2021. Data will also be available for districts and selected towns and villages and, for foreigners, also in the classification by country of origin.