More than half a million overnight stays in the city of Groningen

The number of overnight stays in the city rose to 554,000 in 2016, an increase of 16%. Overnight stays in the city have shown a structural increase since 2003, but had not previously exceeded half a million. In the province of Groningen, Marketing Groningen observes that more people are visiting but staying for shorter periods, causing the number of overnight stays to decline slightly. Nationally, the number of overnight stays increased by 2.6%. This is evident from figures provided by the Municipality of Groningen and Statistics Netherlands (CBS).

Overnight stays in the city of Groningen have risen sharply

A substantial increase in overnight stays can be seen in the city of Groningen. While there were 479,000 overnight stays in Groningen in 2015, this number rose to 554,000 in 2016 (source: Municipality of Groningen). Both hotel and camping stays increased significantly (16.2% and 9.4% respectively). However, a slight increase of around 2% was also observed at marinas and Bed & Breakfasts. In 2016, there were several major events, such as the David Bowie is exhibition at the Groninger Museum and DelfSail. Another explanation for the increase is the opening of the new hotel, The Student Hotel, in 2016. “We are pleased with this positive trend and we expect this increase to be structural,” says Hans Poll, Director of Marketing Groningen.

The number of guests in the province of Groningen is increasing, but they are staying for a shorter time.

Figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) show that the province of Groningen realized an increase in the number of guests of 14,000 to 667,000 in 2016. However, the number of overnight stays decreased by 3% to 1,454,000. This means that more people stayed overnight in the province, but they stayed for shorter periods.
“If we look at the type of accommodation, we see that the number of hotel overnight stays increased by 11%, but that campsites and bungalow parks are struggling. In our new tourism campaign ‘Nothing beats Groningen’, which we launched at the beginning of this year, we are therefore paying a lot of attention to the types of accommodation that are currently having a hard time, so that they too can benefit from the tourism growth,” explains Hans Poll. Incidentally, bed & breakfasts, an accommodation type that is well represented in Groningen, are not included in the CBS statistics.