NI hotels bounced back from Covid pandemic in 2022

Hotels in Northern Ireland sold 3.75m beds in 2022, the first full year of trading since the Covid-19 pandemic.

That was not a full recovery compared to the last pre-pandemic year in 2019 when 3.95m beds were sold.

However, the figure was slightly above the 3.73m beds sold in 2018.

Hotels faced severe restrictions during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 as the hospitality sector was forced to close for months at a time.

The bed occupancy rate in 2022 was 50% compared to 54% in 2019 and 53% in 2018.

The official figures suggest that 45% of hotel guests were local residents, 30% were from Great Britain, 13% from the Republic of Ireland and the remainder from the rest of the world.

The figures also point to continued growth in self-catering tourist accommodation with almost 3,700 establishments registered with Tourism NI in 2022.

That was up from about 3,600 in 2021 and just 1,400 a decade ago.

The 3,700 figure may also be underestimate as some establishments could be operating illegally without being registered.

Janice Gault, head of the Northern Ireland Hotels Federation (NIHF), said while the summer season has been strong there is still some uncertainty in the industry.

"We've come out of the pandemic and gone into a cost-of-living crisis," she told BBC News NI.

"Over the summer business has remained buoyant. However, there are concerns about the cost of living and how this will translate as the year progresses."

Other figures suggest that Titanic Belfast was the top paid-for visitor attraction in 2022, attracting 611,000 guests.

However, that is still far below 2019 when there were 823,000 visitors and, outside of the pandemic, last year saw its lowest number of visitors since 2013.

The second most popular paid attraction was the Giant's Causeway, with 422,000 visitors, which was also far below the pre-pandemic level of more than one million visitors in 2017 and 2018.

Meanwhile, the Swedish hotel property company Pandox has bought the Belfast Hilton for £40m.

The hotel will continue to operate under the Hilton brand.

Liia Nõu, chief executive of Pandox, said: "The hotel is well-invested with a strong strategic location in the city centre of Belfast.

"We will also make certain targeted value increasing investments to further improve the hotel's position and profitability."