Archive:European Neighbourhood Policy - East - tourism statistics

Data extracted in April 2021.

Planned article update: March 2022.

Highlights

There were more than 300 000 bed places in hotels and similar establishments across the European Neighbourhood Policy-East countries in 2019, compared with 12 million in the EU.

Aside from Ukraine, the number of bed places grew in all of the ENP East countries during the last decade.

In 2019, almost 7 million non-residents arrived at hotels and similar establishments of the European Neighbourhood Policy-East countries, compared with 316 million in the EU.

Arrivals of non-residents at hotels and similar establishments, 2009 and 2019

This article is part of an online publication and presents information relating to tourism in the European Union (EU) and in the six countries that together form the European Neighbourhood Policy-East (ENP-East) region, namely, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Data shown for Georgia exclude the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia over which Georgia does not exercise control and the data shown for Moldova exclude areas over which the government of the Republic of Moldova does not exercise control. The latest data for Ukraine generally exclude the illegally annexed Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol and the territories which are not under control of the Ukrainian government (see specific footnotes for precise coverage).

This article highlights recent developments concerning the number of bed places in hotels and similar establishments, the number of arrivals of non-residents at tourist accommodation establishments and the number of trips made by outbound tourists.

Tourism plays an important role because of its economic and employment potential, as well as its social and environmental implications. Tourism statistics are not only used to monitor tourism policies but also regional and sustainable development policies.

Full article

Tourism infrastructure

There were more than 300 000 bed places in hotels and similar establishments across the ENP-East countries; almost half of these were in Ukraine

The number of bed places available in hotels and similar tourist accommodation establishments provides one measure of a country’s capacity to attract tourists; note that official tourism statistics include business travellers as tourists, alongside individuals travelling for pleasure or other reasons. In 2019, the six ENP-East countries had a combined total of 356 000 bed places (the latest information for Armenia refers to 2012). By comparison, there were 12.3 million bed places in hotels and similar establishments across the EU in 2019.

Table 1: Bed places in hotels and similar accommodation establishments, 2009-2019
(thousands)
Source: Eurostat (enpe_tour_cap_nat) and (tour_cap_nat)

Among the ENP-East countries, Ukraine had by far the highest number of bed places in hotels and similar establishments, at 172 000 in 2019, which equated to 48 % of the total number of bed places available within the six ENP-East countries. Note that the large fall between 2013 and 2014 in the number of bed places in Ukraine shown in Table 1 to a large extent reflects the change in geographical coverage of Ukrainian data, in particular the exclusion of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the City of Sevastopol and a part of the temporarily occupied territories in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The next largest number of bed places among ENP-East countries was in Georgia, where there were 76 000 in 2019.

Aside from Ukraine, the number of hotel bed places grew in all of the ENP-East countries during the last decade

Figure 1 provides information on the development of the number of bed places in hotels and similar establishments over the period 2009-2019. (Note that the development for Ukraine is influenced by a break in series in 2011 and a change in the geographical coverage in 2014.) With the exception of Ukraine, all of the remaining ENP-East countries reported a marked expansion in their bed capacity during the period shown, with the number of bed places quadrupling in Georgia. For comparison, there was an overall increase of 11.7 % in the total number of bed places available across the EU in hotels and similar establishments between 2009 and 2019.

Figure 1: Bed places in hotels and similar establishments, 2009-2019
(index 2009 = 100)
Source: Eurostat (enpe_tour_cap_nat) and (tour_cap_nat)

Non-resident arrivals

Some 6.9 million non-residents arrived at hotels and similar establishments in the ENP-East countries

In 2019, there were 6.9 million arrivals of non-residents at hotels and similar establishments across the six ENP-East countries. This figure could be compared with a total of 316 million arrivals of non-residents at hotels and similar establishments in the EU (see Table 2). Non-resident arrivals in the six ENP-East countries were equivalent to 2.2 % of the EU total in 2019. Georgia had the highest number of non-residents arriving at hotels and similar establishments, with 2.9 million, followed by Azerbaijan (1.3 million), Belarus (1.1 million). Ukraine counted less than 1 million arrivals of non-residents in 2019, Armenia counted slightly more than half a million while Moldova had less than 200 000 arrivals of non-residents.

Table 2: Arrivals of non-residents at hotels and similar establishments, 2009-2019
(thousands)
Source: Eurostat (enpe_tour_occ_arnat) and (tour_occ_arnat)

Table 3 shows the development of the number of arrivals of non-residents staying in hotels and similar establishments during the period 2009-2019. There was an increase in the number of arrivals of non-residents in the six ENP-East countries, except for Ukraine where the number fell greatly in 2014; at least part of the reduction could be attributed to changes in the geographical coverage of the data. The fastest expansion in the number of arrivals of non-residents was recorded in Georgia, as the number of arrivals in 2019 was 19 times as high as it was in 2009. Although much slower, the pace of growth for non-resident tourist arrivals was also considerable in Armenia and Azerbaijan, as its number was 8.4 and 6.3 times as high in 2019 as in 2009 respectively. During this period, the number of non-resident tourist arrivals almost trebled in Belarus and Moldova.

Table 3: Arrivals of non-residents at hotels and similar establishments, 2009-2019
(index 2009 = 100)
Source: Eurostat (enpe_tour_occ_arnat) and (tour_occ_arnat)

Figure 2 shows the number of arrivals of non-residents at hotels and similar establishments relative to the number of (resident) inhabitants. In the EU, there were 709 arrivals of non-residents per 1 000 inhabitants in 2019. Among the ENP-East countries, the ratio of non-resident arrivals to population was lower than in the EU, except for Georgia which had the highest ratio, with 770 non-resident arrivals per 1 000 inhabitants in 2019. In contrast, there were less than 50 per 1 000 inhabitants in Belarus and Moldova. The number of non-resident arrivals relative to the population increased at a relatively fast pace in several of the ENP-East countries between 2009 and 2019. The largest gain in relative terms was recorded in Georgia, where the ratio was 22 times as high in 2019 as it was in 2009.

Figure 3: Arrivals of non-residents at hotels and similar establishments, 2009 and 2019
(per 1 000 inhabitants)
Source: Eurostat (enpe_tour_occ_arnat), (tour_occ_arnat) and (demo_pjan)

Outbound tourism

The number of outbound trips taken by tourists from Ukraine reached 28.9 million in 2019

This section details the outward flow of tourists travelling abroad. EU tourists made 271 million non-domestic trips in 2019; note that EU data for this particular indicator are estimates and only refer to persons aged 15 years or older.

By contrast, among the six ENP-East countries, the highest number of outbound tourist trips was recorded for Ukraine — the most populous of the ENP-East countries — at 28.9 million in 2019. There were 4.3 million outbound trips made by tourists from Azerbaijan, 1.7 million from Armenia, 1.4 million from Georgia, 1.0 million from Belarus (data refer only to organised visits) and 0.3 million from Moldova (see Table 4).

Table 4: Trips taken by outbound tourists, 2009-2019
(thousands)
Source: Eurostat (enpe_tour_dem_tttot) and (tour_dem_tttot)

Developments for the number of outbound tourist trips between 2009 and 2019 are shown in Figure 3. There was a rapid expansion in the number of outbound tourist trips from Azerbaijan, with the most recent number of outbound tourists 3.8 times as high as in 2009. For Moldova and Armenia there were also substantial increases, with their numbers of outbound tourists in 2019 3.3 and 3.0 times as high as 10 years earlier, respectively. The number of organised outbound visits made by tourists from Belarus fluctuated considerably between 2009 and 2017, but overall the number such visits trebled in 2019 compared to 2009. For Ukraine there was a relatively steady but modest increase in the number of outbound tourist trips between 2009 and 2019, interrupted by a fall in 2014 (when there was a change in coverage of the data); overall the number of trips almost doubled between 2009 and 2019.

Figure 3: Trips taken by outbound tourists, 2009-2019
(index 2009 = 100)
Source: Eurostat (enpe_tour_dem_tttot) and (tour_dem_tttot)

Source data for tables and graphs

European Neighbourhood Policy — East countries — tourism: tables and figures

Data sources

The data for ENP-East countries are supplied by and under the responsibility of the national statistical authorities of each country on a voluntary basis. The data result from an annual data collection cycle that has been established by Eurostat. These statistics are available free-of-charge on Eurostat’s website, together with a range of additional indicators for ENP-East countries covering most socio-economic topics.

Tourism, in a statistical context, refers to the activity of visitors taking a trip to a destination outside their usual environment, for less than a year. It can be for any main purpose, including business, leisure or other personal reasons other than to be employed in the place visited. A tourist is a visitor that stays overnight (at least one night).

Within the EU, a system of tourism statistics was established through Council Directive 95/57/EC of 23 November 1995 on the collection of statistical information in the field of tourism. This legal basis requires EU Member States to provide a regular set of comparable tourism statistics. The Directive was amended in 2004 and 2006, before being repealed in 2011 when the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union adopted Regulation (EU) No 692/2011 concerning European statistics on tourism. The 2011 Regulation on tourism statistics was amended in 2013, in 2019 and again in 2020; the current consolidated version of Regulation (EU) No 692/2011 incorporate all these amendments.

Tourism statistics in the EU consist of two main components: on the one hand, statistics relating to capacity and occupancy (supply-side tourism statistics); on the other, statistics relating to tourism demand. In most EU Member States, the former are collected via surveys filled in by accommodation establishments, while the latter are mainly collected via traveller surveys at border crossings or through household surveys. Statistics on tourism demand refer to tourist participation, in other words, trips of at least one overnight stay during the reference period.

Tables in this article use the following notation:

Value in italics	data value is forecasted, provisional or estimated and is therefore likely to change;
:	not available, confidential or unreliable value;

Context

Tourism has the potential to contribute towards employment and economic growth, as well as to the development of rural, coastal, peripheral or less-developed areas. Infrastructure created for tourism purposes contributes to local development, while jobs that are created or maintained can help counteract industrial or rural decline. Sustainable tourism involves the preservation and enhancement of cultural and natural heritage, ranging from the arts to local gastronomy or the preservation of biodiversity.

On 18 November 2015, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the European Commission jointly presented a review of the European Neighbourhood Policy (SWD(2015) 500 final) which set out a revised approach for the EU in relation to its eastern and southern neighbours, based on stabilising the region in political, economic, and security-related terms.

In cooperation with its ENP partners, Eurostat has the responsibility ‘to promote and implement the use of European and internationally recognised standards and methodology for the production of statistics necessary for developing and monitoring policy achievements in all policy areas’. Eurostat undertakes the task of coordinating EU efforts to increase the statistical capacity of the ENP countries. Additional information on the policy context of the ENP is provided here.