Tourists spent fewer nights in five-star hotels in October bucking the trend in other categories that witnessed increases over the same month last year.

October saw almost 160,000 tourists spend 876,000 nights in hotels, according to figures released yesterday by the National Statistics Office.

The NSO said the largest share of guest nights was reported in four-star hotels, accounting for almost 417,000 nights or 48 per cent of the total.

In the five-star category, despite a marginal increase in the number of guests, the number of bed nights dropped by some 700.

The average length of stay in hotels stood at 5.5 nights in October, on a par with last year’s figures. The NSO said that in the 10-month period until October, there were 1.4 million tourist arrivals, an increase of two per cent. Total nights spent went up by 1.5 per cent.