The number of visitors to hotels and guesthouses decreased in April, mainly the foreign guests were absent

In April, the number of visitors to hotels and guesthouses decreased by 4% year-on-year and was by 13% lower than the values of the successful tourist year of 2019. Only 3 out of 8 regions, namely Košický, Trenčiansky and Banskobystrický kraj, achieved a higher number of guests than last year.

384 000 guests visited tourism accommodation establishments in Slovakia in April this year, which was by 3.9% less than in the corresponding period last year. The year-on-year lower numbers of visitors to hotels and guesthouses in April were also due to the Easter holidays in March, which, unlike last year, did not help accommodation providers to achieve better results. Almost 60 000 visitors were missing from hotels and guesthouses to reach the tourist success of 2019. Guests spent more than 900 000 nights in tourism establishments, the average length of stay in April was 2.4 nights.

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In the structure of the accommodated guests, almost two-thirds were domestic visitors. Their total number was comparable to the previous year, reaching almost 244 000 people. However, compared to the pre-Covid period of 2019, hotels and guesthouses lacked a tenth of domestic guests. Mainly accommodation providers recorded a lower number of foreign visitors in April. Their services were used by 140 000 guests from abroad, which was by 7.5% less than in the previous year. By April 2019, almost a fifth of foreigners were missing from the accommodation providers.

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From a regional perspective, only accommodation providers in 3 regions out of 8 - in Košický, Trenčiansky and Banskobystrický – could achieve a higher number of visitors year-on-year. In April, domestic guests most often visited regions of great tourist importance - Žilinský, Prešovský and Bratislavský kraj. Together, these three regions represented almost 60% of the total visit rate. None of them, however, reached last year's numbers, 2-8% of domestic guests were missing in hotels and boarding houses. The number of foreign visitors increased year-on-year only in Košický and Trnavský kraj. On the contrary, the largest, almost a 20% decrease was recorded by Žilinský kraj. The highest number of foreigners visited Bratislavský kraj in April (66 000), representing almost half of the total number of visitors from abroad. It was followed by Žilinský kraj with 19 000 foreigners and Trnavský kraj with 14 000 guests from abroad.

In total, for the first four months of 2024, 1.6 million visitors were accommodated in tourism establishments, which was by 2% more than in the corresponding period last year. The number of foreign visitors rose year-on-year at a faster pace than of the domestic visitors. While the number of foreigners increased by 4%, of the domestic guests increased only slightly year-on-year (1%).