Overview
- Saxony's statistics office reported preliminary figures showing about 1.45 million guest arrivals in January–March 2026 and roughly 3.53 million overnight stays, up 4.8% and 4.0% from Q1 2025 respectively.
- Thuringia recorded around 1.8 million overnight stays in the same period, a 2.1% rise that equals roughly 37,000 more nights than a year earlier.
- The increase is not limited to hotels because camping and holiday rentals gained strongly, with March camping nights in Thuringia jumping 17.5% and holiday accommodations up 7.9% versus March 2025.
- Domestic visitors drove much of the growth and tended to favour rural and nature areas such as the Erzgebirge and Vogtland, while foreign guests—many from Poland, Austria and Czechia—concentrated in cities like Dresden and Leipzig.
- Thuringia's tourism body plans to expand promotion of successful subregions that recorded gains and Saxony's figures remain provisional so final revisions could alter the reported growth.