In April visits to hotels and boarding houses were one third ahead of March but still rose to only 11% of the pre-pandemic values, Slovak Statistical Office shows.
The accommodation establishments were visited by 50 thousand people, which was by 89% less than the number of visitors two years ago in April.
Two years ago (in April 2019), up to 442 thousand visitors used the accommodation services and reported 1,1 million overnight stays.
A significant majority of visitors in Slovakia in April were also domestic tourists, representing 86,2% of the number of accommodated visitors (43 thousand people).
In April, the most domestic tourists visited Žilinský kraj, Bratislavský kraj and Prešovský kraj.
At the same time, accommodation establishments were visited by 7 thousand foreign visitors in April. A year before the pandemic (April 2019), their number exceeded 171 thousand.
In total, for the months of January to April 2021, 140,2 thousand visitors were accommodated in tourism establishments, which represents a year-on-year decrease by 87,1%.
The number of domestic visitors decreased by 83,4% year-on-year in four months and the number of foreigners by 93,9 %.
Greece will officially open the tourist season on May 14, and tourists must prove anti Covid-19 vaccination, antibodies or take a negative test.
In addition, they will wear a mask in all public spaces.
Until then, Greece will gradually lift the restrictions, if allowed by medical estimates and the evolution of the pandemic.
Even more, all tourists can be subjected to random tests, in the same way as last year.
A significant difference from last year is the ”rapid tests”, due to which the quarantine for positive cases will be instituted immediately, without the waiting time of 24 hours in 2020.
Four Seasons Hotels and Omnam Group, a global real estate firm, announce plans for a brand-new resort in Puglia, on the coastal region of southern Italy.
Located on a pristine beachfront property, the upcoming Four Seasons property in Puglia will be comprised of 150 rooms and suites.
Accommodations will be housed in villa-style units, all facing the sea, and is being designed by HKS Architects, while interior design is being led by ODA Architecture.
Additional onsite facilities will include six restaurant and bar offerings, including an all-day restaurant, a specialty restaurant, a seasonal pool bar and grill, a lobby lounge bar, a signature bar and a beach club.
The resort will also include extensive meeting and event spaces including a ballroom and smaller meeting rooms in a designated building, as well as additional outdoor event offerings.
Even more, Four Seasons resort will have a spa, fitness centre, 10 treatment rooms, hammam, sauna, pool and yoga studio.
International Air Carriers Association (IATA) announces the launch of a travel permit in late March 2021.
A digital system for test results and vaccination certificates will be in place to help international travels, Reuters reports.
It is essential that governments start issuing digital vaccination certificates to citizens, which will serve as the basis for the travel permit, IATA said.
The IATA travel permit will put test results for COVID-19 and vaccination certificates in a digital format, which will speed up the check-in process.
This summer will be very important for many airlines which are trying to survive the restrictions imposed to stop the coronavirus pandemic.
IATA represents approximately 290 airlines worldwide, equivalent to 82% of global air traffic.
For accommodation activities in Greece, the turnover in 2020 amounted to 2,303,658,141 euro, recording a decrease of 67.0%.
In 2019 the respective turnover was 6,991,184,282 euro.
The largest decrease in turnover in 2020 compared with 2019 was recorded in Karpathos (83.5%) and the smallest decrease (14.3%) was recorded in Florina.
For the enterprises in Food and Beverage Service Activities, the turnover in 2020 amounted to 3,773,850,833 euro.
This is a 37.7% decrease in comparison with 2019, when the respective turnover was 6,059,184,851 euro.
The largest decrease in turnover was recorded in Mykonos (73.3%) and and Santorini (71%), while the respective smallest decrease (17.3%) was recorded in Korinthia.
The current disruption of the European hotel industry will continue until mid-2021 and the recovery period will be significantly longer.
51% of hospitality owners, lenders, developers and investors expect to reach again the 2019 performance levels in 2023 and 20% believe it will not be until 2024 and beyond, according to the latest edition of Deloitte European Hotel Industry Survey.
In addition to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the European hotel industry needs to tackle other risk factors, the study shows, such as demand fluctuations (72% of the European respondents) and the lack of economic growth (60%).
Additionally, the UK respondents (40%) mentioned Brexit as a key risk for the local hotel industry, the study shows.
Amsterdam, London and Paris remain the most favorable European cities to investments
Even if the hotel industry has seen a decline in investment appeal in the context of the health crisis, with a total decrease of 25% in 2020 compared to the previous year, the most favorable European cities to investments in 2021 remain Amsterdam, London and Paris.
Amsterdam, which has led the ranking for four years, continues to be the most attractive city for hotel investments, followed by London and Paris, while Berlin leaps ahead to the fourth position from the 16th in the previous year.
In addition, the survey highlights that serviced apartments – fully furnished apartments available for short and long-term stay, providing amenities similar to hotels – become the most attractive European asset in which to invest in 2021, due to positive demand fundamentals and leaner costs.
In terms of sources of equity capital for hotel acquisitions, private equity investments is predicted to remain the preferred one, as respondents sentiment almost doubled in 2020, with an increase of 22% compared to the previous year.
At the opposite side, the interest in acquisition of the institutional investors and the real estate funds might register a moderation in 2021, as the demand from them was down by 9% and 10% points respectively in 2020 compared to 2019.
The study also emphasizes that senior bank lending is expected to remain the most common source of debt financing in the European hotel market, according to two-thirds (66%) of the respondents, followed by the real estate investment funds (40%) and distressed debt funds (36%).
Ryanair launched its Winter 21/22 schedule, covering some of the most popular destinations for trips taking off from late October.
Ever popular with its customers, Ryanair has launched routes to the likes of sunny Cyprus, Gran Canaria, the Greek islands, Sicily and Malaga for Winter ’21.
Avid skiers who missed out on their trip to the slopes can dust off their skis with popular destinations such as Turin, Milan and Salzburg set to welcome visitors once again next winter.
Also, Ryanair has launched a seat sale with fares available from €29.99 for travel from October ’21 – March ’22, available for booking on the Ryanair.com website only until midnight, Sunday 14th Feb 2021.
Braga collected 109,902 votes, 28,8% of votes from Portugal and 71,2% of votes from the rest of the world.
Top 3 is completed by Rome and Cavtat, a Croatian Sustainable Destination awarded by the European Commission, for whom voted 1 traveler on 10.
612,609 travelers from 192 countries around the world voted this year for the European Best Destinations competition. 61% of votes were from Europe, 39% from outside Europe.
Interesting, Kefalonia is the Greek Island that collected the highest number of votes since the creation of the competition.
The favorite destinations for American travelers are Rome, Braga, Cavtat, Paris, and Sibiu.
Chinese travelers prefer Paris, Rome, Florence, Ghent, Kotor and UK travelers are enjoying Braga, Florence, Rome, Cavtat, Sibiu, and Ghent.
Tourism growth in the promoted destinations is on average +15%
European Best Destinations competition have an impact in ”real life” with significant growth of tourists for the top destinations.
It was recorded a + 17% growth of tourism for Porto rewarded in 2017, + 13% for Bordeaux rewarded in 2015, + 25% for Zadar rewarded in 2016, +41% for Zagreb, European Best Christmas Market 2016-2017-2018, +18% for Budapest awarded the title of European Best Destination in 2019.
The number of international visitors to Spain has fallen by more than 80% in 2020, after authorities imposed travel restrictions in context of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19).
Spain welcomed only 19 million foreign tourists last year, a level not recorded since 1969. Also, foreign tourists’ spending in 2020 fell by 78.5% to 19.74 billion euros.
Most foreign tourists came last year from France (3.87 million, a decline of 65.2%), the United Kingdom (3.17 million, down 82.4%) and Germany (2.41 million, a decline of 78.4%).
In 2019, the number of international visitors reached a record level of 83.5 million, the seventh consecutive year of increase in the number of tourists. They spent 91.91 billion euros.
Spain is the second most visited country in the world, after France, and tourism counts to about 12% of the Gross Domestic Product.
In 2020, 97.91 million nights spent in Austria were registered, according to preliminary results from the Statistics Office.
This corresponds to a 54.75 million or 35.9% decrease compared to the previous year.
The number of arrivals fell by 45.8% to 25.04 million (non-resident guests: -52.7%; resident guests: -30.5%).
The highest drop in nights spent in absolute figures was recorded among guests from Germany (-18.21 million), the most important market of origin for Austrian tourism, followed by the Netherlands (-2.94 million), Switzerland and Liechtenstein (-1.78 million), the Czech Republic (-1.18 million), Belgium (-1.16 million) and the United Kingdom (-2.20 million).
Vienna toursim was hit hardest
The decrease by federal states varied. With -74.0%, Vienna was hit hardest, while Carinthia (-17.1%), Burgenland (-27.2%) and Styria (-24.5%) closed the calendar year 2020 with significantly lower declines.
While nights spent by non-resident guests decreased in all federal states, there was an increase in resident guests in Carinthia (+5.4%).
By types of accommodation, in hotels and similar accommodations the decrease was over 40%. In commercial holiday dwellings and private holiday dwellings the decrease was 22.6% or 23.6%.
Bed occupancy in Austrian lodging establishments was 30.5% in the 2019/20 winter season (November 2019 to April 2020), down 7.2 percentage points from the previous season.
In commercial accommodation establishments, with the exception of camping, occupancy was 33.3% (-8.4 percentage points), while in private establishments it was 22.5% (-3.8 percentage points), according to Statistics Austria.
Commercial lodging establishments (excluding camping) were just as affected in Corona Summer 2020, with a drop of 15.8 percentage points and an occupancy rate of 26.3%, as private establishments, which had an occupancy rate of 18.0%, 3.3 percentage points lower than in the previous summer.
More accommodation establishments and beds
In the tourism year 2019/20 (November 2019 to October 2020), around 1.14 million beds were available in 68.402 accommodation establishments (not including camping).
Thus, the number of beds rose by 0.9% and the number of establishments by 1.5% compared to the previous year. 50.6% of the available beds were registered in Tyrol (352,010; +0.4%) and Salzburg (226,675; +1.7%).
73.5% of the total number of beds available in the 2019/20 tourism year were in commercial and 26.5% in private establishments; 81.5% of the nights spent were in commercial and 18.5% in private accommodation.
However, there were significantly fewer commercial (32.5% of all accommodation establishments; including camping) than private establishments (share: 67.5%).
Highest number of beds per 1.000 inhabitants in Obertauern and Ischgl
The largest bed providers were Vienna (82.465 beds in winter 2019/20 and 81.377 in summer 2020), followed by Saalbach-Hinterglemm (winter: 17.696), and the city of Salzburg with 16.121 beds in summer.
The highest number of beds per 1 000 inhabitants had Obertauern (12.791 in winter) and Ischgl (7.154 in summer).
The highest share of private beds was recorded in Zell am See (winter: 34.8%, summer: 36.1%).
The commercial bed share was highest in the city of Salzburg (winter 97.7% and summer 97.6%).
The average size of accommodation establishments in Salzburg was 84 beds per accommodation establishment in winter and 81 beds in summer, the lowest was in winter in Schladming, Zell am See and St. Anton am Arlberg with 17 beds per accommodation establishment.
