The occupancy rate in Romania's hotels was the second lowest in the EU in the first part of 2012, ahead of only Luxembourg. The 21.9 percent occupancy rate of hotels and accommodation in Romania in the first six months of 2012 was well below the EU average of 39.3 percent. Romania's figure was also 1.2 percent down on the first six months of last year, according to the latest figure from the EU's statistics office Eurostat.

Eight countries in the EU recorded falls in hotel occupancy on the previous year; France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Sweden, as well as Romania. The 1.2 percent fall in occupancy was the fourth biggest drop, behind Italy's 2.4 percent, Portugal's 1.4 percent and Sweden's 1.3 percent reductions. The worst two months for Romania were January and February, with just 17.1 and 15.9 percent occupancy rates respectively. February's figure was almost 4 percent lower than in February 2011.

At an EU level, despite the majority of countries recording slight rises in occupancy, the overall EU average for accommodation occupancy was down by 0.5 percent. This was no doubt due to the falls in guest numbers in some of the big Mediterranean tourist destinations – Italy, Spain, France and Portugal. The biggest growth was seen in Latvia and neighboring Bulgaria. Latvia recorded a 6.5 percent increase in hotel occupancy in the first six months of 2012 to reach a rate of 31.6 percent. Meanwhile, Bulgaria saw a 4.1 percent rise to reach an average 28.7 percent occupancy rate for January to June 2012.

Liam Lever, liam@romania-insider.com

photo source: sxc.hu