More guests spent less nights in Hungarian hotels

In January-September 2008, the number of international and domestic tourism nights decreased by 1.3% in public accommodation establishments. The revenue of accommodation establishments was essentially unchanged at current prices.

 In the first nine months of 2008, 2.801
million foreign guests spent 8.147 million nights in public accommodation establishments, the
number of tourist arrivals increased by 2%, while the number of
tourism nights decreased by 1% 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, too. Regarding tourism nights in hotels,
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 3.23 million domestic guests
and 8.026 million domestic tourism nights. The number of tourist
arrivals and that of tourism nights – similarly to the foreign
tourist arrivals – increased by 2% and decreased by 1%
respectively. In the hotels accounting for 60% of domestic tourist
arrivals the number of tourism nights increased by 2% compared with
the previous year, in four and five star units the growth was 10 and
11% 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. Most
guests booked individually, only 29% booked through travel agencies.
E-booking is strongly emerging among travellers (28%).

In the last nine 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-September, the number of
tourist nights spent at the Lake Balaton and in Budapest decreased by
1% compared with the same period a year ago.

In the observed period, public
accommodation establishments had gross revenues of HUF 189 billion,
which was nearly the same as one year ago at current prices. Within
this, accommodation revenues amounted to HUF 109 billion. The gross
average room rate was HUF 14 813, a nearly sevenfold difference was
registered between one and five star room rates. The revenue per
available room in hotels (REVPAR) was HUF 7 427, 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-September, the accommodation and catering price index was up
by 8% compared with the previous year.

On 30 September 2008, 2 433 public
accommodation establishments were registered including 823 hotels
with 49 thousand rooms, 989 boarding houses with 13 thousand rooms
and 621 other accommodation establishments (tourist and youth
hostels, holiday houses, camping sites). In September 2008, the
number of the available bed places in public accommodation
establishments was down by 5% on the same period a year ago. In
September, accommodation establishments operating in several branches
employed 30 thousand persons.