Easter weekend was major success for tourism

The spring school holiday, which ended on Monday, was a major success for tourism at the Belgian coast, according to West Flanders tourism organisation Westtoer. “About 1.3 million day trippers travelled to the coast over the whole Easter holiday,” said Westtoer chair Franky De Block in a statement. “Easter weekend alone was good for 350,000 day trippers.”

Longer-stay tourism also saw improved figures, starting the period quietly but picking up in the second week. The Easter weekend – Good Friday to Easter Monday – was “an absolute topper,” De Block said, with hotels filled to 90% capacity.

The Easter period was also a success for hotels in Brussels, where bookings were at 75% of capacity – the highest figure yet for an Easter weekend and largely attributed to the spring weather. Another reason was that Easter this year fell rather late for skiing, and people tended to opt for a city break instead.

Limburg shared in the spoils, with more tourists – 308,268 overnights – in the two weeks of the school holiday than in the whole month of April last year, many of them enjoying the early blossoms on the fruit trees in the province. More than 85,000 of the visitors were there to cycle. The province intends to invest more in cycling facilities, according to Toerisme Limburg.

The weekend ended in a more traditional fashion on Monday evening, with traffic jams on the E40 direction inland stretching over tens of kilometres between Jabbeke and Ghent.

photo courtesy Toerisme Oostende/Westtoer