Half fewer overnight stays in tourist accommodations in 2020

Enterprises
Half fewer overnight stays in tourist accommodations in 2020

The number of overnight stays spent in Belgian tourist accommodations amounted to 695,341 in December 2020. Most of the overnight stays were spent in holiday dwellings (47%) and only 41% in hotels.  475,669 overnight stays were registered in the Flemish Region, 162,971 in the Walloon Region and 56,701 in Brussels.

These figures are provisional but allow nevertheless to draw up a first assessment of 2020 and analyse the consequences of the Covid-19 crisis on the sector of tourist accommodation.

In total, the number of overnight stays in Belgian tourist accommodations decreased by 52% in 2020 compared to 2019.

The hotels were the most impacted by the pandemic with an occupancy decrease of 63%. Holiday villages (-57%), youth hostels (-54%) and guest rooms (-47%) are the other most affected sectors. Holiday homes and apartments, second sector in terms of occupancy, saw their number of overnight stays decrease by 33%.

Finally, overnight stays on camping sites decreased by 27% compared to 2019.

The disaffection of foreign clients was more pronounced than the Belgian one with decreases of 69% and 36% respectively. While in 2019 one overnight stay in two was attributed to a foreign resident, this has only been the case for less than a third of the overnight stays in 2020.

Notes:

From 18 March 2020, all accommodations besides hotels were closed. In hotels, only overnight stays for non-tourist purposes were allowed. On 8 June 2020, all accommodations were allowed to reopen, also for tourist overnight stays.

Holiday parks and camping sites had to close from 3 November to 7 February. Hotels and B&B could remain open, but bars and restaurants had to close. So meals had to be taken in the room. There was almost no overnight stay in youth hostels. Exceptionally, the figures for this category as well as for guest rooms are only available at a national level for November and December.