Tourism - 1 quarter

A decline of guests and their overnight stays at collective accommodation establishments, which already started in Q2 2008, continued also in Q1. 2009 The number of overnight stays decreased by 8.7% year-on-year, of which nonresidents by 18,6%, on the contrary residents went up by 2.3%. The number of foreign guest decreased by 17.1%, domestic guests increased by 1.0%. Year-on-year progress in Q1 2009 was influenced by the fact that last year there was one day more due to leap year and further by the fact that Easter holiday shifted into April this year.
The number of overnight stays, which is for the economy more important than the number of guests, totalled 7.3 million in Q1 2009; this was by 8.7% (i.e. 694 thousand) less than in the same period of the previous year. The number of overnight stays of nonresidents went down by 18.6% (by 780 thousand), on the contrary the number of residents was by 2.3% (i.e. by 86 thousand) up. The sharpest drop reported five-star and four-star hotels (by 19.2% and 11.6%, respectively); a slight increase was recorded only in holiday dwellings and hostels for tourists (by 0.9%).

In Q1 2009, a total of 2.3 million guests was recorded at surveyed establishments; this was 8.4% (by 210 thousand) down on Q1 2008. The number of foreign guests dropped by 17.1% (by 222 thousand); the number of residents was higher by 1.0% (by 12 thousand). The decrease was probably influenced, among other things, by the fact that Easter holiday move into April this year. On the contrary a slight increase of domestic tourists might be affected by good snow conditions in the mountains. Stated development was reflected in regional changes. The number of guests went up only in Jihocesky Region (by 7.6%) and Kralovéhradecky Region (by 1.1%), the highest drop was on the contrary in Jihomoravsky Region (by 15.9%) and in Capital Prague (by 15.2%). As far as tourism regions is concerned there was an increase in Sumava Mountains (by 7.4%), South Bohemia (by 4.5%) and Krkonose Mountains (by 4.3%), the regions with good conditions for winter recreation. The highest drop of guests, apart from already mentioned Capital Prague, was in South Moravia (by 15.4%) a West Bohemia Spas (by 13.8%), the regions with the highest frequency of luxury hotels.

The highest number of foreign guests (as for the country of permanent residence) in Q1 2009 arrived from Germany, they reported the highest number of overnight stays too, although compared to the previous year it was remarkable decrease (by 15.9% and 18.6%, respectively). From top ten countries an increase was shown only by tourists from Poland.

At spa accommodation establishments the number of overnight stays totalled 1.3 million; this was 9.5% down year-on-year. The number of overnight stays of nonresidents went down more (by 16.5%) than in terms of residents (by 2.6%). In Karlovarsky Region, which reports more than half of overnight stay from all balneological establishments, was total drop by 12.9%, of which nonresidents by 15.5%, on the contrary number of overnight stays of residents increased by 2.5%.

Net use of rooms of hotels and similar establishments was 32.8% in Q1 2009 (i.e. by 4.8 p.p. less than in the same period of the previous year). A decrease reported all categories of hotels and boarding houses as well, the highest five-star hotels (by 13.5 p.p.) then, the lowest boarding houses (by 1.1 p.p.). Boarding houses remain the category with the lowest use of rooms from all categories (24.9%).

---

Methodological note:
1) Data on guests at collective tourist accommodation establishments are obtained from the monthly CR1-12 sample survey and the quarterly CR2-04 survey. Data mentioned are sums of the data processed from submitted questionnaires and imputed data on the accommodation establishments that failed to report. Net use of room is the number of overnight stays in a particular period divided by the number of room-days (stated as a percentage).

Text not edited for language.

Contact: Hellerová Alena, phone: (+420) 274052921, E-mail: alena.hellerova@csu.gov.cz
Data source: CZSO direct survey in collective accommodation establishments
End of data collection: 21 April 2009
End of data processing: 7 May 2009
The data are preliminary; final data for all quarters of 2009 will be known in February 2010.
Quarterly data since 2000 are available in time series ( /produkty/cru_ts ).
Data for year 2008 were revised on 20 March 2009