This year’s summer tourist season has been successful, since the record numbers from last year’s summer were exceeded. In the first eight months of this year, 3.71 million guests were accommodated in Slovakia, roughly 300,000 more than a year ago. Moreover, visitors spent more than 10 million nights in our country, the Transport Ministry reported on November 20.
“Tourism is currently in very good shape, confirming that it is a sector that offers value,” Transport Minister Árpád Érsek said, as quoted by the SITA newswire. “It gives people work, because in the all corners of our country it employs more than 300,000 people and provides a lot of fun and leisure,” he said. The Minister added that he hoped his department would be able to maintain the trend they embarked on, and for the country to maintain its appeal for tourists. The number of visitors to Slovakia grew this summer 8.2 percent y-o-y, up more than 130,000 guests, thus maintaining the previous growth trend.
During the high season, the Slovak Republic hosted approximately 1.75 million guests who spent more than 5.4 million nights in the country. The average length of a stay was 3.1 nights. Domestic visitors dominated, accounting for 56.6 percent of all tourists. The number of foreign guests grew dynamically as well, since there were 8.3 percent more than last year. The biggest numbers were from the Czech Republic – one third of the total,” ministry spokesperson Karolína Ducká told SITA, adding that it was followed by Poland, Germany, Hungary and Austria in number of visitors in terms of visitors coming from these countries.
As for the regions, the most visited one was the Bratislava Region, a total of 1.1 million overnight stays were reported. The fastest rate of visitors was marked in the Trnava Region (+18.7 percent); and as for number of overnight stays, the Nitra region growing the fastest (+29.5 percent).
“The biggest attractions were mostly regions with hiking sites around the cities of Poprad, Liptovský Mikuláš and Žilina,” Ducká noted. “In summer, the visitors’ rate naturally also concentrated in regions with thermal spas and water parks near Nové Zámky, Dunajská Streda, Senec and Piešťany.” The most visited places included the cities of Bratislava, Trenčín, Nitra, Bardejov, Košice, Banská Štiavnica and Banská Bystrica.
