Prague is crying, Slovácko is full. The new numbers apply where tourists have gone
Hoteliers in nine of the fourteen regions can be satisfied, their equipment’s obsolescence during the first holiday month was even better than before the covid in 2019. Also, bookings for the next month do not look as tragic as a year ago, when coronavirus cases are increasing.
However, the metropolis is suffering.
Data from booking books for July in more than a thousand hotels were provided to the SZ Byznys editorial office by Previo.
“Nationwide occupancy broke the record for July this year. In year-on-year comparison with 2020, it was higher by three percentage points and returned to the pre-ideal level. According to information from landlords, the demand for accommodation is still primarily driven by Czechs, “says Pavel Kotas, founder of Previo.
It is a picture mainly about how small and medium-sized hotels and guesthouses have. The reservation system does not offer the capacity of large multinational chains such as the CPI Hotels, Orea and others, which target larger cities, foreign clients and congress tourism. It is these hotels that are worse off, because foreigners are still missing in traditional compositions.
Although Germans and Poles are starting to travel a bit, they have mainly improved their destinations, where domestic tourists are heading. But from September, occupancy will start to fall again.
According to Previo data, hotels in Prague were not even half full last July. This year, it reports 57 percent occupancy, ten percentage points higher. On the contrary, they can only remember the golden era before the pandemic, when Prague was the destination with the highest occupancy ever.
However, the president of the Association of Hotels and Restaurants, Václav Stárek, says that large hotels clearly predominate in the metropolises, and if they are included, the actual occupancy will be between 20 and 30 percent.
“Although the Germans and Poles are starting to travel a bit, they have mainly improved the destinations where domestic tourists go. But from September, occupancy will start to fall again, “says Stárek. According to him, it is still true that people prefer smaller facilities, such as guesthouses. “On the contrary, our estimate for this year is worse than we had at the beginning of this year. Overall, we could reach 30 to 35 percent in cities and 70 percent outside, “he added.
In addition to Prague, operators of smaller hotels were still below the levels of 2019 in the Karlovy Vary Region, the Pilsen Region, the Central Bohemian Region and the Ústí Region.
And where do you do? The absolute winner of the hunt for tourists was the Zlín Region. With an occupancy rate of 72 percent, he became a record holder and surpassed the popular South Bohemian and wine tourist paradises. It also improved significantly compared to the pre-ancestral year of 2019, when regional accommodation facilities were filled with “only” 60 percent.
During the pandemic, Vysočina, the Olomouc Region and the Pardubice Region benefited significantly. It is there that the number of tourists, or rather the occupancy in the examined hotels, is increasing at the highest rate. Nevertheless, they still attract less attention than the South Bohemian Region and the South Moravian Region.
From a more detailed look at the occupancy of hotels in specific tourist localities, it can be read that about half of the destinations improved compared to last year, but also compared to 2019. Vysočina (12 and 13 percent) and Ostrava region grew strongly for two consecutive years. (8 and 13 percent). Today, therefore, they can be among the destinations, where the capacities of hotels are the busiest.
Covid changes the chances of where the tourist can easily find accommodation. Smaller and medium-sized hotels in Slovácko were the most crowded in July this year, where 79 percent of the rooms were comfortable. Which does not mean that the tourist got a stay on an attractive date, because the capacity was not available at any time, but only on some less popular days.
After Slovácko, the leaders in hotel occupancy in the Ostrava region – in Silesia and in the Moravian Karst and in the Brno region. The accommodation providers had the most free capacities in the Ore Mountains (obsolete 48.8 percent), but also in Šumava and Český les. At the same time, these South Bohemian destinations were still among the most exposed in 2019. Nevertheless, Šumava and Český les are still 18 percent below 2019.
Compared to the time before the covid, they also need improved mountain areas. There were fewer vacant rooms in the Jizera Mountains than in the Giant Mountains, which, however, recorded a big leap forward by 22 percent compared to 2019. We also do not need guests in the Beskydy and Wallachia.
However, for two years in a row, obsolescence has decreased in the Ore Mountains, where there is the most space in the rooms. The Lusatian Mountains were also empty.
The records in the booking books also give a relatively promising outlook in the coming months. The average occupancy for August is currently eight percentage points higher than last year and in September even ten percentage points.
“We conclude that, compared to previous trends, the domestic season is extending into the autumn months. At the same time, we expect the trend of increasing the number of domestic reservations to continue in advance, ”says Pavel Kotas from Previa.