Tourist Activity in the EU Recovers to Pre-Pandemic Levels

According to the European Union's statistical bureau, Eurostat, the findings for 2022 in the tourism sector indicate that the EU's tourist market has nearly reached the level of 2019, the last year before the coronavirus pandemic. This research was published by Eurostat on Tuesday, October 31.

In 2022, the countries of the European Union offered a total of 28.9 million bed spaces across over 620,000 hotels and other accommodations for tourists. Compared to 2019, the number of bed spaces and accommodations increased by approximately 1%.

Furthermore, over the past year, nearly 2.8 billion overnight stays were recorded in hotels and other tourist establishments in the EU, which represents 96% of pre-pandemic levels. The majority of these stays were by tourists from EU countries, accounting for 1.6 billion.

A significant change observed in the EU's tourism market, in comparison to 2021, is a decrease in the share of domestic tourism, while the number of foreign tourists has increased. This serves as another indicator of the recovery of the tourist market.

In 2021, only 8% of overnight stays were spent by tourists from regions outside of the European Union. In 2022, this figure increased to 13%. After the lifting of travel restrictions for international tourists, they actively visited EU countries, and EU citizens also traveled abroad.

However, the recovery of the EU's tourist market is not uniform. In some countries, such as Latvia and Slovakia, the number of overnight stays in 2022 was less than 75% compared to previous years. In contrast, tourists in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark stayed as actively as they did in 2019.

It's worth noting that in September, Eurostat reported that the first half of 2023 saw the highest number of tourists in Europe in the past decade. From January to June 2023, Europe recorded 1.19 billion overnight stays, which is 0.9% and 12.9% higher than the same period in 2019 and 2022, respectively. Demand was particularly strong from travelers from North America.

Each month in 2023 has proven to be better for tourism in the EU compared to the previous year, with January and February showing the most significant growth rates at 45% and 27%, respectively.