A decline in the number of visitors continued, November was the third weakest month since the beginning of 2020

In the penultimate month of 2020, hotels, boarding houses and other accommodation establishments recorded a year-on-year decrease of visitors by more than 85 %.

Hotels, boarding houses and other tourism establishments accommodated 68,5 thousand visitors in November 2020, which represents a year-on-year decrease by 85,7 %. After April and May, it was the third highest drop in the number of visitors in 2020. Although November is one of the weakest in terms of tourism, in 2019, it was a month of high number of visitors with almost 500 thousand accommodated people and 1,2 million overnight stays. The number of visitors decreased by more than 40 % in November 2020, compared to October 2020.

The guests spent a total of more than 263 thousand nights in establishments, their number decreased by almost 80 % year-on-year. A significant year-on-year drop in the number of visitors in accommodation establishments in Slovakia was related to the measures adopted against the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the curfew introduced by the Slovak government at the end of October 2020 and which was in force in the first half of the month.

Despite the lower number of visitors, the guests stayed in accommodation establishments longer, a higher average number of overnight stays was reflected already for the second consecutive month, increasing year-on-year from 2,5 to 3,9 nights. This increase was caused by spa stays of domestic guests. The highest increase in the number of overnight stays was in Trenčiansky kraj from 3,9 to 7 nights. Room capacities were used the most in this region, at 24,3 %. This was followed by Trnavský kraj, where the number of overnight stays increased from 3,3 to 6,3 nights (an increase by 3 overnight stays), room capacity was used to 18,8 %.

As for the individual districts¹⁾, in November 2020, the longest average length of stay was in the district of Turčianske Teplice (13,8 nights), followed by Krupina, Stará Ľubovňa, Senica and Bardejov (all of them 10 to 11 nights per visitor's stay). In all cases, a growth was caused by the stays of domestic visitors, especially in the spa.

In November 2020, the number of visitors in the SR was mainly represented by domestic tourists, accounting for 85 % of the total number of guests. However, their number decreased sharply again year-on-year, by 82 % to 58 thousand people (a year ago the number of domestic guests was 321 thousand). After the months of April and May, it was the third lowest value in 2020. In all regions, the number of domestic tourists decreased by more than 75 %. The lowest decrease was in Bratislavský kraj (by 76 %) and in Košický kraj (by 77,7 %). The highest decrease was recorded in Žilinský kraj, by 85,5 %. Traditionally, the most visited areas of Slovakia, Žilinský and Prešovský kraj, registered a total of only 20,4 thousand domestic visitors.

The number of foreign visitors, who were registered by Slovak accommodation establishments in an amount of more than 10 000 in total in November 2020, remained very low. In the same period last year, there were sixteen times more of them (almost 160 000). In November 2020, the highest number of foreign tourists was recorded in Bratislavský kraj (4,7 thousand persons), Nitriansky kraj (1 thousand persons) and Košický kraj (0,9 thousand persons).

In November 2020, a negative impact was most visible in Žilinský kraj, where the total number of visitors fell by almost 88 % year-on-year and only almost 11 000 guests were accommodated. The number of foreign guests decreased by as much as 95,6 %. Bratislavský kraj followed (a decrease of 87,2 %), with a decrease of foreign visitors by 94,2 %. The city of Bratislava was just as bad as in previous months, the number of visitors decreased by 87,2 %, and the number of foreign visitors dropped by 94,4 % year-on-year. The eastern metropolis, Košice, was also declining in November, mainly as for the foreign visitors (by almost 90,4 %). The total number of visitors of Košice was lower by 78,8 % year-on-year.

Radical restrictions on travel at the national as well as international level have led to a high drop in number of visitors also in total since the beginning of 2020. In eleven months, tourism establishments accommodated more than 3,1 million visitors, a year-on-year decrease of almost 48 %. The number of domestic visitors declined by almost 38 % year-on-year and the number of foreign visitors by more than 63 %.

As of November 2020, tourism had the lowest number of accommodation establishments (4 318) since the beginning of 2020. There were 69,3 thousand rooms and 181,4 thousand beds. Compared to November 2019, the number of rooms decreased by 1,4 thousand (by 2 %) and the number of beds by 4 thousand (by 2,1 %).