Denmark sees major boom in overnight stays
The Local Denmark - [email protected]
Published: 6 Mar, 2015 CET.
Updated: Fri 6 Mar 2015 10:10 CET
Both hotels and private services like Airbnb are reporting massive growth in the number of overnight stays nationwide.
Newly-released figures from the hotel and tourist industry association Horesta show that business is booming at the nation’s hotels. Copenhagen hotels report that the annual number of overnight stays has risen by nearly one million since the financial crisis took hold, going from 3.6 million overnight stays in 2008 to 4.5 million last year. Denmark’s three next largest cities have also seen significant increases. Some 453,000 hotel guests stayed in Denmark’s second-largest city Aarhus in 2014, up nearly 100,000 over the 366,000 overnight stays in 2008. According to Horesta, Odense and Aalborg have also seen significant increases. Even smaller towns like Herning and Esbjerg saw their number of annual overnight stays jump by around 30,000 between 2008 and 2014. The number of hotel stays in 2014 were up 5.5 percent over the year before and Horesta said the numbers could be even be better. “The desire to travel is stronger than ever and it will continue to grow. In Denmark, we could spur growth and job creation if we put even more of an effort into the tourism industry,” Horesta head Jens Zimmer Christensen said in a statement. “Even though we had a nice increase in 2014, we are still far from reaching our potential,” he added. The increase in hotel stays comes at the same time that private home rental services like Airbnb have also grown rapidly in Denmark. Public broadcaster DR reports that the four largest private home rental services now list over 25,000 available Danish properties, a fourfold increase over just two years ago. Airbnb’s Nordic director, Even Heggernes, told DR that the growth in Denmark mirrors the American-owned company’s success the world over. “We have had over 30 million overnight stays since the start of 2008. Twenty million of them were in 2014,” Heggernes told DR.
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Newly-released figures from the hotel and tourist industry association Horesta show that business is booming at the nation’s hotels.
Copenhagen hotels report that the annual number of overnight stays has risen by nearly one million since the financial crisis took hold, going from 3.6 million overnight stays in 2008 to 4.5 million last year.
Denmark’s three next largest cities have also seen significant increases.
Some 453,000 hotel guests stayed in Denmark’s second-largest city Aarhus in 2014, up nearly 100,000 over the 366,000 overnight stays in 2008.
According to Horesta, Odense and Aalborg have also seen significant increases. Even smaller towns like Herning and Esbjerg saw their number of annual overnight stays jump by around 30,000 between 2008 and 2014.
The number of hotel stays in 2014 were up 5.5 percent over the year before and Horesta said the numbers could be even be better.
“The desire to travel is stronger than ever and it will continue to grow. In Denmark, we could spur growth and job creation if we put even more of an effort into the tourism industry,” Horesta head Jens Zimmer Christensen said in a statement.
“Even though we had a nice increase in 2014, we are still far from reaching our potential,” he added.
The increase in hotel stays comes at the same time that private home rental services like Airbnb have also grown rapidly in Denmark.
Public broadcaster DR reports that the four largest private home rental services now list over 25,000 available Danish properties, a fourfold increase over just two years ago.
Airbnb’s Nordic director, Even Heggernes, told DR that the growth in Denmark mirrors the American-owned company’s success the world over.
“We have had over 30 million overnight stays since the start of 2008. Twenty million of them were in 2014,” Heggernes told DR.
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