The number of visitors to hotels and boarding houses, even with significant year-on-year growth, reached only 70% of the pre-pandemic level

The highest number of guests visited accommodation establishments in Bratislavský kraj and Žilinský kraj. It was thanks to foreigners in Bratislavský kraj and domestic visitors in Žilinský kraj. Together, these two regions represented more than 45% of the April´s total visit rate in the SR.

In April of this year, accommodation services were used by 312 thousand visitors. In a year-on-year comparison, hotels, boarding houses and other accommodation establishments had a 6.2-fold increase in the number of visitors. However, it was still by almost 30% less than in the corresponding pre-pandemic period (April 2019). The guests spent 785 thousand nights in the accommodation establishments, the average length of stay in April was 2.5 nights.

Due to the easing of the pandemics, visit rate rose 3.6 to 7.9 times year-on-year in all regions. The number of foreign visitors increased the most, up to 5.9 to 24 times. As for the domestic visit rate, the number of visitors to accommodation establishments was higher by 2.5 to 6.2 times. Bratislavský kraj, lagged the most behind the pre-pandemic period, which still lacked 40% of the visitors. On the contrary, Žilinský kraj came closest to the April values of 2019, reaching almost 83% of the visit rate of the pre-pandemic period.

In April, there were 215 thousand domestic visitors in the accommodation establishments, a fivefold year-on-year increase. Compared to 2019, it is still only 79% of the number of visitors, when 271 thousand visitors used the accommodation services. The most visited regions were Žilinský, Prešovský and Banskobystrický. The lowest number of domestic visitors was in Nitriansky kraj.

In April, 97 thousand foreign visitors were accommodated, of which 42 thousand were in accommodation establishments in Bratislavský kraj (in 2019, twice as many foreigners visited Bratislavský kraj). The second most visited region was Žilinský kraj, followed by Trnavský kraj. The fewest foreigners visited Banskobystrický and Nitriansky kraj.

In summary, from January to April 2022, 1.05 million visitors were accommodated in tourism establishments. Compared to the corresponding pre-pandemic period (January to April 2019), their number was lower by 38%. In the first four months of this year, 306 thousand foreigners were accommodated, in 2019 it was twice as much, i.e. 621 thousand. As for the number of domestic visitors there was a drop by 30% compared to 2019. Since the beginning of the year, 742 thousand domestic guests. At the same time, visitors spent a total of 2.8 million nights in accommodation establishments, in 2019 it was almost 4.6 million nights.