Tourism in the EU finally exceeded pre-Covid figures last year, reaching a record number of 2.92 billion nights spent by tourists in accommodations across the bloc, according to the latest data from Eurostat.
1. First ten months
In the first ten months of 2023, 2.6 billion nights were spent in tourist accommodation in the EU, marking an increase of 155.4 million nights compared with the same period in 2022 (+6.3 %) and of 34.6 million nights compared with the first ten months of 2019 (+1.3 %). Looking at the country data, all EU members for which data is available saw an increase in nights spent compared with the first ten months of 2022, with Luxembourg being the sole exception (-0.1 %).
The number of nights spent by domestic visitors was up by 3.2 % compared with 2019, reaching 1.4 billion nights. International tourism has been slower to recover, but is also close behind, standing at only 0.8% behind pre-Covid levels in the first ten months of the year. Foreigners spent 1.2 million nights in tourist accommodation establishments in EU Member States, only 9.4 million less than over the same period in 2019, but 137.2 million more (+12.5%) than in 2022.
Despite the promising 1.3% increase across the bloc, Eurostat points to different speeds of recovery between Member States. More than half of the EU members have yet to reach the figures recorded in the first half of 2019, with contrasts between double-digit growth in the Netherlands (+15.5 %) and Denmark (+13.7 %) to an over 10% recovery gap still to be bridged in Latvia (-20.1 %), Slovakia (-15.8 %) and Hungary (-10.8 %).
2. Year-end estimate
While the exact year-end data is still being gathered, estimates were obtained by extrapolating the evolution for the first ten or eleven months of the year to the remaining months, reaching an all-time record number of nights spent at EU tourist accommodation establishments. At almost 3 billion nights, 171 million more nights were spent in the EU in 2023 compared to 2022 (+6.3 %), 1.6% over pre-pandemic figures (2.87 billion) and 25% more than one decade ago, in 2013 (2.3 billion).
Overall in 2023, Luxembourg remained the only country below 2022 levels (-1%). Meanwhile, in Malta and Cyprus, the growth exceeded 20%, while in eight other EU members it exceeded 10% (Slovakia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Austria, Czechia, Portugal, Romania and Greece). However, 5 of these 10 countries still observed fewer tourism nights than in 2019. In total, for 13 out of 26 EU members for which data was available, the accommodation sector has not yet fully recovered from the pandemic.
International tourists accounted for 46% of the 2.92 billion nights spent in 2023, showing a near-return to the pre-pandemic share of international tourists (47%), following three years with a significantly lower share of foreigners (respectively 29%, 32% and 44% of all nights spent in 2020, 2021 and 2022).
Hotels and similar accommodation were the dominant segment, with 1.8 billion nights spent (63% of the total), followed by holiday and other short-stay accommodation (24%). Lastly, campsites accounted for 13% of the total, or about 1 in 7 nights over the whole year, but with an increase to 1 in 5 nights in the 3rd quarter.
