SLOVAKIA reported the fourth deepest drop of all European Union member states in terms of the number of nights spent in its hotels and similar establishments in 2009. In total, visitors spent 6.3 million nights in hotels in Slovakia. Compared with 2008, that represented a drop of 18.1 percent, the SITA newswire reported, citing data by Eurostat.
Local guests spent 3.5 million nights in Slovak hotels, a decrease of 6.3 percent; foreign visitors spent 2.8 million nights in Slovakia, which represented a drop of 28.4 percent. The highest overall fall was recorded in the May-to-August period, down 19.4 percent year-on-year, also according to data published by Eurostat.
Latvia reported the biggest annual drop in the number of nights spent there, 23.3 percent, followed by Lithuania, down by 20.4 percent, and Cyprus, down by 19.7 percent. The smallest decline was registered in Germany, down by just 1.4 percent. Sweden was the only country which reported an increase in nights spent, by 0.1 percent.
On average across the EU, the number of nights spent in hotels and similar establishments shrank by 5.1 percent, to 1.496 billion nights in total.
