Belgium/The town of Ath attracts more and more tourists, +30% overnight stays in two years
The town of Ath is attracting more and more tourists, as figures from the Observatoire wallon du tourisme show. In two years, the number of overnight stays in the town of giants has risen by 30%.
We're in the middle of the autumn vacations, and tourist accommodation in Ath is almost completely booked.
According to figures from the Observatoire du tourisme wallon, Ath has gone from 106 beds in 2008 to 323 available beds in 2024. In sixteen years, tourist capacity has almost tripled. Overnight stays have also soared, from 6058 in 2008 to 42,187 in 2023 and 46,024 in 2025. This represents an increase of over 30%: "We can confirm that Ath is no longer just a stopover town: it's becoming a real stayover town," says Ysaline Remy, alderman for tourism.
While Pairi Daiza is partly responsible for this success, it's not the only reason. Emmanuel has owned five gîtes in the town center for the past four years, and he notes that visitor profiles are varied:"There are people who really come to do tourism, there's one-day tourism with Pairi Daiza, yes, but also tourism lasting several days. A lot of people come to cycle, given that the RAVeL passes through Ath. We really feel that there's a much broader tourism that revolves around the hill country and around the very attractiveness of our town."
A challenge for the local economy
The town is aware that the giant Pairi Daiza attracts visitors, but the challenge today is to know how to keep them, and why they should come back in the future, not for the animal park, but for the region. "These people are here now. And so, we, in conjunction with the accommodation providers, are going to try to offer them a range of activities so that, in some way, they will create economic activity in our region. " We've had Norwegians, Spaniards, Dutch and Germans. We're attracting a new population to our region. It's very positive because it has a knock-on effect on our local economy, our businesses and our HoReCa," continues the tourism alderwoman.
Even today, a dozen or so owners are awaiting permits to launch their tourist accommodation, a sign that demand is not waning. Faced with this increase in tourism, the town says it will remain vigilant to ensure that Ath does not give too much priority to tourism development at the expense of local life.
Source: www.rtbf.be/
