Tourism - 2. quarter of 2006

In Q2 2006, a total of 3.4 million guests arrived at collective accommodation establishments; this was +7.0% up on Q1 2005. The number of foreign guests increased by +7.1%, in particular due to the postponement of the Easter holiday to April; the number of domestic tourists grew by +6.9% too.Graph 1
In Q2 2006, a total of 3.4 million guest arrivals was reported at collective accommodation establishments; this was 7.0% up on the Q1 2005. There were 1.8 million foreign guests, i.e. +7.1% more than in 2005; domestic tourists totalled 1.6 million (+6.9%). A growth in both foreign and domestic guest arrivals at collective accommodation establishments was probably a result of this year’s postponement of the Easter holiday to April and also extended winter season until the beginning of April.

Cold weather and local flooding caused that in Q2 2006 fewer guests arrived at tourist campsites and hostels for tourists compared with the same period of last year. A higher number of guest arrivals allowed to be reported at four-stars and five-stars hotels (+8.7% and 12.8%, respectively), due to a higher capacity. As usual, most guests arrived at other hotels and boarding houses (more than 50%). The second of the most frequented categories of collective accommodation establishments were four-stars hotels, in which one-fifth of guests was checked in; this was 6.7% up on the Q2 2000. The extended capacity of mentioned hotels was particularly used by foreigners that represented 83.1% of a total number of guests.

As for the country of permanent residence, most tourists, as usual, came from Germany, Great Britain, even though the number of British guests decreased repeatedly by the same volume as in Q1 (-13.4%). Italy was at the third place. A position of these countries in Top 10 is, in the long run, stable. Moreover, it does not change during the year seasons as well. Countries USA, France, Poland, Slovakia and Netherlands are usually in Top 10 but their positions change during a year. For example tourists from USA were at 8th place in Q1 2006 but in Q2 placed (as in the previous year) at 4th position. Austria and Japan (last year 9th and 10th place, respectively) were eliminated from Top 10 in Q2 2006 and they were substituted by Russia (8th place) and Spain (10th place). The highest growth in the number of guest arrivals was recorded by Russians (on top of that, their visit is in the long term the longest). Visitors from Spain increased almost by one-fifth, from Slovakia by +16.0% and from Poland by +15.1%.

As usual, the target destination for foreign tourists was Prague, in which 57.6% of foreigners were accommodated; it was followed by the Karlovarsky Region and Jihomoravsky Region (7.5% and 6.5%, respectively). Prague also remains the most visited target in terms of the total number of guest arrivals (share 34.0%), the Jihomoravsky Region moved at the second place (+8.7%) and third most visited destination was the Jihocesky Region (+7.6%). A significant increase in total number of arrivals was recorded in the Karlovarsky Region, where +21.2% more guests arrived due to new luxury hotels in particular. The Vysocina Region was the only region, in which the number of guest arrivals slightly decreased in Q2.

In Q2 2006, overnight stays of guests reached 10.2 million, which was +7.2% up on the Q1 2005. Year-on-year growth by +8.5% was recorded in number of foreign guests (totalling 5.4 million overnight stays). An average number of overnight stays for both foreign and domestic guests was 3.0 nights, which does not change in long run.

Net use of rooms of hotels and boarding houses was 46.9% in Q2 2006. The highest net use was reported, as in the previous year, by five-stars hotels (68.0%), which was 5.7 percentage points up. Other hotels and boarding houses reached 40.8% of net use of rooms; it was 3.1 percentage point up year-on-year.

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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: 4 August 2006
End of data processing: 14 August 2006
The data are preliminary; revised data for all quarters of 2006 will be known in March 2007.
Quarterly data since 2000 are available in time series ( /produkty/cru_ts ).