Ticket sales for the Charlottetown Festival of Lights are down significantly from last year, a decline that is being felt by tourist operations in the area.

Just under half of the festival's tickets have been sold. That's almost 5,000 tickets out of a possible 10,000.

"This has been the worst year ever for the Festival of Lights," said Antoinette Goeseels, sales manager of the Howard Johnson Hotel in Cornwall. "We've always been sold out, or pretty near being sold out. It's never an issue, but this year, for some reason, it is.

This should be one of the busiest weeks for the hotel, but right now they're only at about 50 per cent occupancy, Goeseels said.

That seems to be the trend for several tourist operators.

Marco Polo Land, a popular camping site in Cavendish, is also reporting about 50 per cent occupancy, which is down significantly.

The Quality Inn in Charlottetown says only a third of its rooms are occupied this week.

Even the Delta Prince Edward, right next to the site of the festival, is down about 20 per cent from previous years.

The low ticket sales are likely due to a saturation of concerts in the Maritimes over the next several weeks, said Lee Gauthier, CEO of Tourism Charlottetown.

"We're certainly working towards getting as many people here as we possibly can," said Gauthier. "Hopefully we'll have a great walk-up, and we'll see those numbers continue to grow."

Some tourism operators are also hopeful they'll get some last minute bookings. Others said if they haven't seen the interest yet, it's not going to happen.