Tourism surprise: Harz is booming despite Saxony-Anhalt's challenges!

Tourism surprise: Harz is booming despite Saxony-Anhalt's challenges!

Tourism in Saxony-Anhalt will show positive trends in 2025, indicating growing popularity among travel enthusiasts. In the first quarter, the sector recorded interesting growth, bringing with it some very encouraging statistics.

In April 2025, like this dubisthalle.de, around 282,800 guest arrivals and almost 706,900 overnight stays were registered in the accommodation establishments. This corresponds to an increase of 5.2 percent in guest arrivals and even 7.8 percent in overnight stays compared to April 2024. One reason to be happy is that 93.3 percent of the guests came from within the country and the figures for both guest arrivals (+4.6%) and overnight stays (+8.2%) are getting off to a positive start.

Trend towards more stays

In addition, visitors are increasingly drawn to the Harz and the surrounding regions, where an increase of 12.5 percent in guest arrivals and 17.0 percent in overnight stays was recorded. These developments show that, despite its rare mention, the Harz has gained a firm place in the focus of holiday regions in the Federal Republic. While Saxony-Anhalt is considered a less popular holiday destination compared to the rest of the country, shows mdr.de that the country attracted at least 3.4 million overnight guests in 2024, with 3.1 million of these guests coming from Germany.

The occupancy rate of accommodation establishments was 32 percent on average in 2024, lower than the national average of 37.9 percent. What is particularly noteworthy is that Saxony-Anhalt has the third lowest number of star hotels in Germany and does not own a single five-star hotel.

Regional highlights

Which regions show the best performance? In addition to the Harz, Anhalt-Wittenberg also stands out with 7.2 percent more guest arrivals and Halle, Saale, Unstrut with a small increase of 2.6 percent. However, there appear to be construction sites in Magdeburg, Elbe-Börde-Heide, where guest arrivals fell by 1.7 percent.

At the height of the tourist season, campsites and holiday apartments are very popular, which is reflected in the movements with increases of 54.7 percent and 48.5 percent in guest arrivals. A circumstance that indicates the increased demand for holiday options close to nature.

A look into the future

No matter how the numbers develop, it will be exciting to see whether Saxony-Anhalt can attract even more holidaymakers in the coming summer holidays. The fascination of the seven UNESCO World Heritage sites in the country, the adventurous nature of the Harz and the cultural offerings at least give reason for hope. The clear trend is also that in 2025 not only will demand increase, but opportunities for holidaymakers and the inland economy will also develop.

Overall, the signs for Saxony-Anhalt are pointing to growth in tourism. The combination of tranquility in nature and cultural highlights is likely to attract even more visitors. The coming months could be crucial in determining whether or not the country can position itself as an attractive travel destination in the long term.

As the accommodation statistics for the entire period from January to April show, guest arrivals are down slightly compared to the previous year at 842,000 and 2,060,000 overnight stays. Nevertheless, there is still hope for better capacity utilization and a growing number of tourists in the coming years, after all, Saxony-Anhalt has a lot to offer!