Tourism - 4. quarter of 2007

In Q4 2007, a total of 2.7 million guests arrived at collective accommodation establishments; this was 8.5% up on Q4 2006. The number of overnight stays increased by 7.9% of which foreign tourists by 8.2% and domestic tourists by 7.5%. Number of guests in the whole year 2007 went up by 1.9% year-on-year, number of overnight stays, in contrast, dropped by 1.5%.Graph 1
In Q4 2007, a total of 2.7 million guest arrivals was recorded at collective accommodation establishments; this was 8.5% up on Q4 2006. There were, as usually in the fourth quarter, more foreign (1.5 million) than domestic guests (1.2 million) there. Year-on-year increase by nonresidents (+9.6%) was higher than by residents (+7.1%).

The highest number of tourists – 892 thousand (i.e. 33% of guests total) – was reported, as usual, at category of three-stars hotels. The highest growth in guest arrivals was recorded at five and four-stars hotels (+14.7% and +12.9%, respectively) particularly due to foreign tourists (in five-stars hotels they totalled over 90% of guests; in four-stars almost 80%), however these categories of hotels are slowly discovered by domestic guests too. Number of residents in five-stars hotels was by 37.2% more, in four-stars hotels almost by 25% more. For nonresidents these types of hotels are the most visited collective accommodation establishments (in Q4 2007 their number was +48% more year-on-year), the share of mentioned hotels for residents is only 13.2%.

As for NUTS 3 regions, the most visited were Prague (1.1 million quests), Jihocesky Region (232 thousand) and Kralovehradecky Region (162 thousand). The highest increase was in Pardubicky Region (+26.1%) and Plzensky Region (+24.2%).

The highest number of quests by country of permanent residence arrived from Germany in Q4 2007, although in comparison with the same period of previous year their number decrease by 1.4%. They were followed by tourists from Great Britain and Italy. The highest increase was recorded by visitors from Russia (+27.5%) and they became the fourth most frequented guests’ group in nonresidents.

The number of overnight stays totalled 7.9 million in Q4 2007; this was 7.9% up on Q4 2006. The growth in number of overnight stays was reached mainly due to nonresidents (almost 60%); their number went up by 8.2%, as for the residents it was by +7.5%.

Concerning tourism regions, most guests arrived, apart from above mentioned Prague, to South Moravia (295 thousand), North Moravia and Silesia (229 thousand) and to West Bohemia Spas (162 thousand).

At spa accommodation establishments were recorded 155 thousand guests (+9.3%) in Q4 2007 of which 76 thousand were nonresidents (-0.5%). Most guests came to Karlovarsky Region (90 thousand) of which tree quarters were nonresidents.

Net use of rooms of hotels and boarding houses was 41.1% in Q4 2007 (+1.1 percentage point year-on-year). The highest net use was reported by five-stars hotels (60.8%) and four-stars hotels (53.5%). Other hotels and boarding houses reached 34.9% of net use of rooms. As for the NUTS 3 regions the highest net use of rooms was reported in Prague (56.6%) and Karlovarsky Region (49.9%); in contrast the lowest net use of rooms was in Ustecky (24.4%) and Jihocesky Region (25.7%).

Tourism performed quite well in the year 2007. The number of guests‘ arrivals increased by 1.9% compared to year 2006. The number of foreign guests went up by 3.8% but domestic guests decreased by 0.1%. The growth was recorded in the categories of hotels and similar establishments; other collective accommodation establishments reported drops, especially holiday dwelling and hostels for tourists and campsites. The number of overnight stays went down by 1.5% of which domestic tourists by 5.3%; in contrast number of overnight stays of foreign tourists increased by 2.6% year-on-year. The highest growth was recorded in four-stars hotels (in guests’ arrivals by +11.6%; in overnight stays by +11.5%). Remarkable drop was reported by holiday dwellings (by -13.3% and -19.2%, respectively) and campsites (by -8.5% and -14.0%, respectively).

Comparing particular quarters the most successful was Q4; the highest number of guests at collective accommodation establishments was recorded, as usual, in Q3 (4.5 million) in spite of the drop by 1.4%. The highest number of overnight stays was in this quarter as well (15.2 million; decrease by 7.0%).

Comparing foreign guests and domestic guests in year 2007 better results were reported for nonresidents. The number of their arrivals totalled 6.7 million with an increase by 3.8%; number of overnight stays reached 20.6% with an increase by 2.6%. In contrary, the number of arrivals of residents totalled 6.3 million with a decrease by 0.1%; the number of overnight stays reached 20.2 million and it decreased even by 5.3%.

There were 51.5% foreign guests accommodated at collective accommodation establishments in year 2007. The highest number of guests (4.5 million) visited Prague of which almost 90% were nonresidents. Other regions that were frequently visited were Jihomoravsky (1.2 million guests) and Jihocesky Region (981 thousand). Foreign tourists went, except for already mentioned Prague, to Karlovarsky Region (472 thousand, it was almost 70% of total guests) and Jihomoravsky Region (432 thousand; about 40% of total guests) the most frequently. Regions with the lowest number of guests were Ustecky (377 thousand) and Pardubicky Region (390 thousand). The highest drop was recorded in Liberecky (by 11.7%) and Jihocesky Region (by 10.9%).

The highest number of guests arrived to the Czech Republic from Germany, Great Britain, Italy, USA and Russia. The longest average time of stay was reported by Russians (6.3 days). Average number of days of all guests was 4.2 days and 4.1 days for foreign guests.

Net use of rooms of hotels and boarding houses was 43.1% (+0.1 percentage point than in year 2006). The highest net use was reported by five-stars hotels (62.0%) and four-stars hotels (56.5%) even though there was a decrease in both categories (in five-stars hotels by -0.2 p.p.; in four-stars hotels by -1.0 p.p.) Other hotels and boarding houses reached 37.4% of net use of rooms (-0.1 percentage point than in year 2006).

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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).

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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: 23 January 2008
End of data processing: 8 February 2008
The data are preliminary; final data for all quarters of 2007 will be known in April 2008 at the latest.
Quarterly data since 2000 are available in time series ( /produkty/cru_ts ).