EU sees bigger share of tourists from outside Europe

In 2023, the EU registered a total of 2.9 billion nights spent in tourist accommodation establishments, up from 2.8 billion in 2022. Almost 1.6 billion nights were spent by domestic tourists and close to 1.4 billion by international guests.

Between 2022 and 2023, the share of nights spent by international guests from regions outside Europe rose from 12.6% to 15.6%. In absolute numbers, the nights by non-Europeans grew by 60 million, or an additional 164.000 foreign guests every night of the year, on average.

In 2023, 7.1% of the international nights in EU accommodations were spent by tourists from North America, while guests from Asia represented 4.6%, Central and South America 2.2%, Oceania 1.0% and Africa 0.7%. 

Tourists coming from other EU countries represented 62.4% of the total nights spent by international guests, while nights spent by tourists from other European countries represented 21.4%.

Source dataset: tour_occ_ninraw

EU approaches 30 million tourist bed places

In 2023, the EU had an estimated total of 29.2 million bed places, compared with 28.9 million in 2022. 

Italy and France accounted for slightly more than one-third of the total available capacity. They had 5.2 (18%) and 5.1 million (17%) bed places, respectively. Spain and Germany followed, with 3.8 million and 3.4 million (both 13%) bed places. 

Source dataset: tour_cap_nat

Almost half of tourism nights at coastal accommodation

In 2023, 1.4 billion nights (48%) were spent at a coastal accommodation establishment.

Among the EU countries with coastal areas (which excludes Czechia, Luxembourg, Hungary, Austria and Slovakia), all of Malta’s nights spent at tourism accommodation took place at coastal establishments, ahead of 97% in Cyprus and 96% in Greece. By contrast, Belgium and Romania (both 18%), and Germany and Slovenia (both 19%) had the lowest number of tourist nights spent in accommodation establishments in coastal areas.