Tourism - 3. quarter of 2006

In Q3 2006, a total of 4.7 million guests arrived at collective accommodation establishments; this was +6.4% up on Q3 2005. The number of foreign guests increased by +4.3%; the number of domestic tourists grew by +8.3%. Exceptionally warm November attracts more guests by +13.7% compared with previous years.Graph 1
In Q3 2006, a total of 4.7 million guests arrived at collective accommodation establishments; this was 6.4% up on the Q3 2005. There were 2.2 million foreign guests (non-residents), i.e. +4.3% more than in 2005; domestic tourists (residents) totalled 2.5 million (+8.3%). A popularity of accommodation in campsites, holiday dwellings and hostels for tourists grows during the summer months. Campsites, in which one fifth of guest was put up, became the second of the most frequented categories of collective accommodation establishments right after three-stars hotels. The campsite capacity was used particularly by domestic guests (share in the total number 76.8%). Among foreign tourists campsites found the highest favour with Netherlanders, who contributed by 38.7% to foreign guests in this category of accommodation establishments. Nevertheless, their number decreased by -0.9%

The third quarter is the most important period of the year in the tourism. In the long-term it contributes to the total number of guests by 36%. Due to good weather in July and particularly in September arrived the highest number of guest at collective accommodation establishments in the last six years. In July it grew by 6.3% and in September even by 13.7% year-on-year, particularly due to residents. Their number grew significantly (+8.9% and +21.4%, respectively) than the number of non-residents (+3.0% and +7.4%, respectively). In contrast, cold weather in August influenced lower growth in the number of guests (+1.3%). Even a slight decrease of domestic tourists (-0.2%) was reported in August.

The number of guests at collective accommodation establishments grew by 5.7% year-on-year since the beginning of the year, particularly due to residents, who were accommodated by +380 thousands compared with Q3 2005 (+7.7%). Foreign guests arrived more than +3.8%, totalled +188 thousands guests.

In Q3 2006, overnight stays of guests reached 16.7 million, which was +6.6% up on the Q3 2005. Year-on-year growth by +4.4% was recorded in number of foreign guests (totalling 6.9 million overnight stays). An average number of overnight stays was 3.6 nights, for foreign 3.1 and domestic guests 3.9 nights. The longest average number of overnight stays 6.8 nights was reported by the category of other collective accommodation establishments including also spa establishments. In contrast, the shortest stays with average number of overnight stays 2.7 nights was recorded by five-stars hotels. As for the destination, guests spent the longest period (average 6.4 nights) in the Karlovarsky Region; this was connected with spa as well. The shortest average number of overnights stays 2.6 nights was in the Jihomoravsky Region. The number of overnight stays increased in all of the categories of collective accommodation establishments except for campsites year-on-year. There was a decrease by 0,1% in the category of campsites.

As for the country of permanent residence, most tourists came from Germany, Great Britain and Netherlands in Q3 2006. Russia reached 10 position in the ranking according to the number of foreign guests. In contrast, Austria was eliminated from top ten (Table 4).

Net use of rooms of hotels and boarding houses was 50.9% in Q3 2006 (+4,7 percentage point year-on-year). The highest net use was reported, as in the Q3 2005, by five-stars hotels (70.5%), which was 1.8 percentage points down. Other hotels and boarding houses reached 45.5% of net use of rooms; it was 1.9 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: Vančura Pavel, phone: (+420) 274052096, E-mail: pavel.vancura@csu.gov.cz
Data source: CZSO direct survey in collective accommodation establishments
End of data collection: 2 November 2006
End of data processing: 13 November 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 ).