Ljubljana - Slovenia's tourism sector took a significant hit last year due to the global pandemic, with nearly all providers seeing their figures plummet, as the number of tourists halved compared to 2019. The only exception were tourist farms, where the number of nights was roughly the same, data from the Statistics Office show.

Some 250,000 nights were generated at tourist farms last year, about the same as the year before. There was, however, a significant change in the structure of tourists. While foreign tourists accounted for 79% of all nights in 2009, the share dropped to 25% last year.

On the other hand, hostels were hit hardest of all types of accommodation, seeing their night numbers drop by 61%. Hotels saw a drop of 51%, private accommodation by 31% and camps by 30%.

The number of total nights generated by tourists last year was 42% lower than in 2019 dropping to 9.2 million; the bulk was generated by domestic guests during the summer season.

In total, the number of tourists fell by 51% to 3.1 million, of whom 1.9 million were domestic guests, an increase of 21% over 2019. Domestic guests generated 5.9 million nights or 33% more than last year.

The number of foreign guests dropped by 74% to 1.2 million and they generated 3.4 million nights, which was 71% less than the year before.

The majority of foreign tourists were Germans, accounting for 24% of all nights by foreign guests, while tourists from Slovenia's neighbouring countries accounted for a combined 34% of nights generated by foreign tourists.

Austrians and Italians accounted for 11% each of all nights by foreign tourists, followed by Croatians (7%) and Hungarians (5%).

The coastal municipality of Piran remained the most popular destination, reporting 1.3 million or 14% of all nights, while the broader coastal region accounted for 25% of all nights.