Eurostat: Nights spent in EU tourist accommodation in 2023 exceeded pre-Covid-19 levels
Nights spent in EU tourist accommodation in 2023 were up by 6.8 per cent compared with 2022, exceeding the pre-Covid-19 levels, EU statistics agency Eurostat said on November 13.
This follows an earlier report by Eurostat, which said that nights spent in EU tourist accommodation in 2022 were up by 50 per cent compared with 2021, reaching 96 per cent of the pre-Covid-19 levels.
Eurostat said in its November 13 2024 report that over the period 2009-2019, the number of nights spent in EU tourist accommodation establishments grew by 40 per cent.
In particular, there were significant increases in the number of nights spent by international guests (53 per cent) while the number of nights spent by residents during domestic trips increased by 30 per cent.
In 2020, tourism was among the most affected sectors by the Covid-19 pandemic with a sharp drop of 51 per cent in the number of nights spent compared with 2019, Eurostat said.
In 2021 there were clear signs of recovery, with 29 per cent more nights spent in EU tourist accommodation compared with 2020, while the upward trend continued in 2022, with 50 per cent more nights spent compared with 2021.
In 2023, the growth in tourism continued, recording 6.8 per cent more nights spent in tourism accommodation compared with 2022 (188 million nights, or over half a million more overnights stays each day) and surpassing for the first time the pre-pandemic levels.
With almost three billion nights spent in 2023 (see Table 1), EU tourism exceeded 2019 levels by 2.4 per cent. Spain, France, Italy and Germany each recorded more than 400 million nights spent in 2023. Jointly, these four countries accounted for more than six out of 10 nights spent in the EU in 2023.
Looking at the distribution by type of accommodation, hotels and similar accommodation were clearly the most popular (62.6 per cent), followed by holiday and other short-stay accommodation such as rented apartments (23.6 per cent) and camping grounds, recreational vehicle parks and trailer parks (13.8 per cent).
However, there were significant regional differences: in Bulgaria, Cyprus and Malta hotels covered more than 90 per cent of the entire market for rented accommodation; almost half of the tourism nights in Croatia were spent in holiday and other short-stay accommodation, while the highest shares for campsites were observed in Luxembourg, France and Denmark, with more than 30 per cent of total nights spent.
The increase at EU level compared with 2022 reflected positive trends in all EU countries. Malta, Ireland, Slovakia and Latvia reported the highest increases of more than 12 per cent compared with 2022.
Comparing, however, with the pre-Covid-19 figures, Latvia and Slovakia still had the widest gap to bridge, reaching less than 85 per cent of 2019 levels.
On the other hand, Ireland (24.7 per cent), Luxembourg (22.2 per cent), the Netherlands (15.3 per cent) and Portugal (9.4 per cent) showed the largest growth compared with the period before the Covid-19 pandemic.
All three types of tourist accommodation showed increases for 2023 compared with 2022.
The number of nights spent in hotels increased by 8.2 per cent, remaining however slightly lower compared with 2019 (-0.7 per cent).
Nights spent in holiday and other short-stay accommodation and nights spent at campsites increased by 5.4 per cent and 3.2 per cent, respectively, in 2023 compared with 2022, exceeding 2019 levels (5.4 per cent and 12.5 per cent respectively).
Taking into account the population of the country (tourism intensity), Croatia (with 24.0 nights), Malta (with 18.2 nights) and Cyprus (with 17.0 nights) recorded the highest numbers of nights spent per inhabitant over the year 2023.
In the EU, an average of 6.6 guest nights were recorded in relation to the overall population of 448.8 million in 2023, only 0.2 nights fewer compared with 2019 when tourism intensity at EU level was 6.4 nights spent per inhabitant.
Ireland recorded the highest increase in nights spent by international guests in 2023 (47.9 per cent compared with 2022).
The outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020 caused a shift towards domestic tourism, Eurostat said.
In 2023 compared with 2019, nights spent by international guests increased slightly by 1.2 per cent, while nights spent by domestic tourists increased by 3.4 per cent.
The share of nights spent by international guests in EU tourist accommodation dropped from 47.3 per cent in 2019 to 29 per cent in 2020, then in 2021 this share increased to 32 per cent and further to 44.0 per cent in 2022.
In 2023 it recorded a close value to pre-pandemic levels, 46.8 per cent of total nights.
In 2023 compared with 2022, nights spent by international guests in EU tourist accommodation increased by 13.7 per cent, reflected in all EU countries.
The lowest increases, below 10 per cent, were reported by Denmark, Croatia and Luxembourg.
In 2023, Ireland recorded the highest increase in nights spent by international guests (47.9 per cent compared with 2022), yet the nights spent by domestic guests dropped by 11.8 per cent compared with the previous year.
Twelve EU countries exceeded 2019 levels for international guests, while international tourists in Latvia in 2023 spent less than 70 per cent of the nights they had spent in 2019.
In 2023, 1.5 per cent more domestic nights were spent in EU tourist accommodation compared with 2022. Greece (13.7 per cent), Slovakia (10.8 per cent) and Bulgaria (9.1 per cent) recorded the largest increases, while 11 EU countries reported drops in domestic nights.
Given the fact that domestic tourism recovered faster than international tourism, nights spent by domestic guests in the EU in 2023 increased to reach 2019 levels, Eurostat said.
In 23 EU countries, domestic nights recovered completely in 2023 and even surpassed 2019 levels, while in all other countries domestic nights are much closer to 2019 levels compared with international nights.
The same pattern can be seen for the EFTA countries, which surpassed in 2023 the pre-pandemic level, Eurostat said.
(Photo: Kevin Rutherford)
Please support The Sofia Globe’s independent journalism by becoming a subscriber to our page on Patreon:
