Tourist guest nights fall in July

In July, some 687,000 foreign guests (down 2.4% year-on-year) spent nearly 1.9 mln tourism nights (down 5.4%) in commercial accommodation establishments (hotels, boarding houses, camp sites, bungalows and community hostels).

Meanwhile, some 846,000 domestic tourists (down 1.5% year-on-year) spent over 2.5 mln tourism nights (also down 1.5%) in July, compared to the same month of the previous year.

Considering seasonal and calendar effects, the number of foreign guest nights fell by 4.5%, while the number of domestic guest nights grew by 0.4%.

At the same time, total gross sales revenues of commercial accommodation establishments rose by 4.7% at current prices to HUF 62 billion in July, within which accommodation fee revenues grew by 4.5% (to HUF 40 bln) at current prices.

Foreign guests spent half of their guest nights in the Budapest-Central Danube region and 23% at Lake Balaton. The Balaton was the most popular region for domestic visitors, where they spent nearly three times as many nights as in the second most popular region, Northern Hungary.

The occupancy rate of hotels was 71.7% in July, down 1 percentage point from July 2018. Total gross revenue per available room (TREVPAR) at hotels rose 5.6% to HUF 27,224, while the gross average room rate rose 6.6% to HUF 23,614.

In January–July 2019, compared to the first seven months of 2018, the number of guest nights registered by commercial accommodation establishments decreased by 0.5% to a total of 17.4 mln. International guests spent 8.6 mln nights (0.6% fewer) and domestic guests 8.8 mln nights (0.4% fewer) in commercial accommodation compared to the corresponding period of 2018.

Room occupancy in hotels in January–July declined by 0.1 of a percentage point to 59.5%. Total gross sales revenues of commercial accommodation establishments amounted to HUF 300 bln over the period, an 8.0% annualized increase at current prices.

Data for commercial accommodation in August will be published by the KSH on October 11.