9 May 2019

2019- n° 120

In Q1 2019, tourist collective accommodation attendance was down sharply (–2.5% over one year) Tourism occupancy in hotels, campsites and holiday and other short-stay accommodation in metropolitan France - first quarter 2019

In Q1 2019, throughout metropolitan France, the number of overnight stays in collective tourist accommodation declined by 2.5% compared to the same period in 2018. This fall followed more than two years of steady growth in attendance and in particular, an increase of 2.0% year on year in the previous quarter. The decrease was marked for non-residents (–4.8%). Resident occupancy also decreased (–1.5%).

In Q1 2019, attendance in hotels decreased by 1.3% year on year, after a 1,5 % rise in the previous quarter. This decline interrupted a steady increase since the fourth quarter 2016. The drop in attendance concerned hotels in the bottom of the range (1 or 2 stars). Some hotels who did not reiterated their request for classification to Atout France became unclassified. This was reflected in a transfert of overnight stays to this range of hotels. Among classified hotels, only high-end hotels (4 and 5 stars) maintained their level of attendance.

Hotel attendance by non-residents fell sharply (–3.4%), while that of residents decreased slightly (–0.4%).

Overnight stays drop sharply in Île-de-France(–4.6%), for both non-residents and residents, probably due to the movement of the "yellow vests". In provincial urban areas, the decline was lower (–0.8%), for both residents and non-residents.

In the mountain ski area, non-resident occupancy remained dynamic (+4.2%) and helped to contain the drop in overnight stays (–0.5%), while resident occupancy fell (–3.1%).

On the other hand, occupancy increased in the other areas (+1.6%) and especially on the coastlines (+4.8%) thanks to the resident customer who probably took advantage of the dry and warm weather since the beginning of the year.

Attendance at holiday and other short stay accomodation (HOSSA) fell by 4.5% compared to the same quarter of 2018, whereas it was up in the previous quarter (+ 3.6% year on year).

Occupancy in HOSSA was affected by the decline in ski areas of resident customers (–7.6%) and non-resident (–8.2%), during the peak winter sports season. Overnights stays of non-residents also drop in all other areas, especially in urban areas of Île-de-France (–7.8%) or provincial (–3.8%), on the coastlines (–13.5%), and even more in the other spaces (–24.1%), where the number of nights was however much lower.

Throughout metropolitan France, tourist occupancy was almost steady in January and February and decreased in March.In HOSSA, overnights stays was down in each of the first three months of the year, with a particularly sharp decline of non-resident customers in February.