Tourism in Germany is picking up speed again with the expiry of many Corona requirements - but without reaching the pre-crisis level.
Hotels, inns, guesthouses and other accommodation facilities registered 25.1 million overnight stays by domestic and foreign guests in March.
That was almost three times as many as a year earlier, as the Federal Statistical Office announced on Tuesday.
In March 2021, there was a ban on accommodation for private travelers due to the corona pandemic.
Most of the requirements are now gone.
The number of overnight stays by domestic guests rose by 166.6 percent to 21.8 million compared to the same month last year.
The number of overnight stays by travelers from abroad increased by 254.5 percent to 3.3 million.
City tourism in particular should benefit from this, which has suffered severely from the economic consequences of the pandemic due to canceled trade fairs and congresses.
Compared to March 2020 - when the first corona-related lockdown began in Germany - the number of overnight stays was 58.8 percent higher this time.
However, the pre-crisis level is still a long way off: the number of overnight stays was still around a quarter lower than in March of the pre-crisis year 2019.
Almost 63.6 percent of the overnight stays this time were in hotels, inns and guesthouses, 17.7 percent in holiday accommodation and similar accommodation facilities and 2.8 percent in campsites.
The trend towards camping holidays, which are considered low-contact, continued.
The number of overnight stays exceeded the pre-crisis level of March 2019 by 39.1 percent.
Other accommodation relevant to tourism, such as preventive and rehabilitation clinics and training homes, accounted for 16.0 percent of the overnight stays.