More foreign tourists, but they spent less time in Hungary

According to Central Statistic Office in January-October 2008, – compared with the same period of 2007 – the number of international and domestic tourism nights decreased by 1% in public accommodation establishments.

 In the first ten months of 2008, 3.096
million foreign guests spent 8.946 million nights in public accommodation establishments, the
number of arrivals increased by 2%, while the number of tourism
nights decreased by 2% compared with the same period a year ago. Out
of the six major source countries, fewer tourists arrived from
Germany, Austria, the United States of America, while there was a
significant increase in case of the United Kingdom, Romania and
Poland. A considerable growth can be observed in case of the Czech
Republic, Norway and Russia, while the number of Italian and Spanish
guests steadily decreased. In hotels accounting for 80% of
international arrivals, regarding tourism nights, an increase can be
observed in the three and five star categories, while occupancy rates
diminished in case of all other categories.

In the observed period, public
accommodation establishments registered 3.579 million domestic guests
and 8.787 million domestic tourism nights. The number of tourist
arrivals increased by 3%; while the number of tourist nights was
unchanged. In hotels accounting for 61% of domestic tourist arrivals
the number of tourism nights increased by 3% compared with the
previous year, in four and five star units the growth was 11 and 15%
respectively. Boarding houses, which are beloved by domestic guests
and have a significant share in tourism nights, reported 2% fewer
tourism nights.

By travel purpose – in conformity
with seasonal trends – business travellers as well as conference
and congress visitors had a 30% overall share among tourists. 11% of
leisure travellers primarily sought for health tourism products. As
for hotels, 30% of arrivals were registered in spa and wellness
hotels, in the latter ones, the number of domestic and international
arrivals increased dynamically, although their occupancy rate (49%)
was below the national average. Most guests booked individually, only
30% booked through travel agencies. E-booking is strongly emerging
among travellers (28%).

Over the last ten months, hotels had an
average room occupancy rate of 50%, within this spa hotels operated at a rate of 63%, which was
slightly less than in the same period a year ago.

In January-October, the number of
tourist nights spent at Lake Balaton and in Budapest decreased by 1
and 2% compared with the same period a year ago. In the observed period, public
accommodation establishments had gross revenues of HUF 212 billion,
which was nearly the same as one year ago at current prices. Within
this, accommodation revenues amounted to HUF 122 billion. The gross
average room rate was HUF 14 984, a nearly sevenfold difference was
registered between one and five star room rates. The revenue per
available room in hotels (REVPAR) was HUF 7 551, however a major
difference can be seen here also, because five star hotels enforced
nearly twelve-fold rates compared with one star hotels. In
January-October, the accommodation and catering price index was up by
8% compared with the previous year.

On 31 October 2008, 2 117 public
accommodation establishments were registered including 789 hotels
with 46 thousand rooms, 920 boarding houses with 12 thousand rooms
and 408 other accommodation establishments (tourist and youth
hostels, holiday houses, camping sites). In October 2008, the number
of the available bed places in public accommodation establishments
was nearly the same as the number registered in the previous year. In
three- as well as in five-star hotels, 4 thousand more bed places
were available than in the previous year, out of this the number of
available bed places in wellness hotels increased by 2 thousand. In
October, accommodation establishments operating in several branches
employed 29 thousand persons.