STA, 23 July 2021 - Slovenia's tourism is beginning to pick up with fresh statistics showing visitor numbers rose by well over 50% and nights spent at tourism accommodation facilities by almost 70% year-on-year in June.
Arrivals were up by 54.7% to over 375,000 and nights spent rose by 66.7% compared with June last year to over a million, data from the Statistics Office show.
Slovenian tourists accounted for 69% of the nights spent. Most of those were spent in the coastal municipalities of Piran and Izola and Brežice in the east, known for the spa Terme Čatež.
The number of domestic tourists rose by 62% year-on-year to almost 249,100 as foreign visitor numbers increased by 42% to just over 126,000. The latter accounted for just over 317,500 nights spent.
Germans accounted for 20% of the nights spent by foreign tourists, followed by Austrians (15%), Hungarians (9%), Czechs (7%) and Italians (6%).
Both domestics and foreign guests spent most of their nights in Piran (121,800 and 48,200, respectively), however, while other coastal and spa destinations followed as their destinations of choice for Slovenian guests, foreign guests preferred Ljubljana, Bled, Bovec and Bohinj as their other choices.
Hotels were where the 39% of the nights were spent, followed by private rooms, apartments and houses (22%) and campsites (18%).
In the first half of the year tourism accommodation facilities recorded some 572,700 arrivals and 1.7 million nights spent, which is down 38% and 33% year-on-year, respectively. 66% of the nights spent were by locals.
