Accomodation
26. Jan 2023
A record year for hotels
Despite a more modest autumn and winter than in 2019, the annual number of overnight stays hit an all-time high in 2022. Record-high monthly figures were registered from January to August 2022.
Hotel overnight stays are used as a measurement of the number of visitors and the duration of their stays.
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Biggest increase in the capital region
Almost 204,000 overnight stays were registered in hotels across the capital region in 2022. This is almost twice the figure from 2019, which was the previous record year. The same positive trend was not observed outside of the capital region, where about 25,000 stays were registered in 2022. This is higher than the 2020 figure but still below pre-pandemic levels.
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Relatively high increase in hotel visitors from outside Faroes and Denmark
Another record for 2022 was in the number of overnight stays by overseas residents from outside of Denmark. This figure almost doubled from 2021 to 2022 and went up by 5% compared to 2019. The number of overnight stays by overseas residents from outside of Denmark reached almost 90,000 in 2022 compared to about 46,500 in 2021. In 2019, this figure was just below 85,500.
The number of overnight stays by Danish residents also reached a record high in 2022, approaching 90,000. This is a year-on-year increase of 28%. This figure was 50,000 in 2019.
Fewer Faroese residents visited hotels in 2022 than the previous year. The 49,000 overnight stays registered by Faroese residents in 2022 are a 14% decline from 2021.
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Fewer occupied rooms than in 2019
Just over half of all hotel rooms were occupied in 2022. This is some way off the record annual figure of almost 60% registered in 2019.
It should, however, be noted that two large hotels have opened and others have expanded since 2019.
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Most hotel visitors are leisure tourists
About 70% of last year’s hotel visitors were leisure tourists, while the remaining 30% were business travellers. In 2019 and 2020, this ratio was 60% and 40%.
The number of hotel check-ins related to leisure tourists surpassed 66,000 in 2022, which is an all-time high.
Last year also saw an increase in check ins by business travellers. However, this figure is about 1,500 lower than the all-time high of 30,100 from 2019.
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Definitions
Overnight stay: in this context, an overnight stay is defined as a single night spent in a hotel which registers and passes this information on to Statistics Faroe Islands. For example, if ten people spend three nights at a hotel, this counts as 30 overnight stays.
Check-in: the number of individuals who check in at a hotel.
Room nights: the number of rooms occupied over a certain period. For example, if ten people spend three nights in five rooms, this counts as 15 room nights.