France’s National Statistics Institute has revealed that in the first quarter of 2023, the country saw a 12.6 per cent growth in overnight stays in collective accommodation, excluding campsites, a significant jump compared to the same period in 2022.
According to the same source, the spike was mainly in hotel accommodations, which observed a 19.2 per cent increase, while the boost in Holiday and Other Short-Stay Accommodations (HOSSA) was lower at 1.6 per cent.
Over the first three months of 2023, hotel stays climbed by 19.2 per cent – equating to an additional 6.9 million overnight stays – relative to the first quarter of last year, which was still struggling with the impact of the health crisis.
Notably, while domestic customer stays grew by 7.7 per cent (about 2.1 million more overnight stays), the major driving force behind the surge in hotel stays was the increase in non-resident customer occupancy, which soared by 55.8 per cent, resulting in nearly 4.8 million more overnight stays.
Based on statistics, during the first quarter of this year, luxury hotels saw the most significant gains in hotel occupancy, with the number of overnight stays surging by 31.4 per cent compared to the same period of last year.
The only exception was unclassified hotels, whose attendance fell short of its first quarter of 2022 level by 2.7 per cent, primarily due to a decreased interest from resident customers.
In the Île-de-France region, hotel occupancy experienced a remarkable rise of 37.4 per cent relative to the first quarter of 2022, thus marking four million extra overnight stays. At the same time, the uptick in provincial urban areas was increased to 15.1 per cent, equating to an additional 1.9 million overnight stays.
The growth in overnight stays was much lower in coastal hotels (+6.1 per cent) and ski mountain hotels (+3.4 per cent), as the increased non-resident occupancy was partly offset by a decline in resident occupancy.
Notably, there was a significant increase in business-related stays in the first quarter of 2023, with an increase of 17.3 per cent compared to the same period in 2022, a significantly affected time by the health crisis.
Despite this increase, the percentage of business-related stays continued to show a gradual decline, decreasing from 48.8 per cent in Q1 2022 to 48.0 per cent in Q1 2023.
Further statistics show that the occupancy of non-resident customers in hotels in France exceeded in the first quarter of 2023 its level in the first quarter of 2022 by a percentage of +55.8 per cent. However, the attendance of resident customers increased slightly (+7.7 per cent) during this period.
This increase was influenced by the participation from European countries and, in particular, from British customers, followed by those from Germany and the Netherlands.
As for other short-term holiday accommodations (HOSSA) of metropolitan France, growth was confirmed in the first quarter of 2023 with a total of +1.6 per cent over the year, despite the slight decrease of tourist residences by -0.8 per cent.
As in hotels, attendance at HOSSA increased particularly in urban areas by +28.5 per cent in Île-de-France and +1.8 per cent in the provincial urban area.
