Our reading of data from Eurostat. Spot an error? Tell us at hello@adatastory.com.
Tourist accommodation · EurostatNights spent in hotels, holiday homes and campsites · EU and 10 neighbours · 1990–2025, monthly to July 2026
Guest Book.
In 2025 the EU spent a record 3.1 billion nights in hotels, holiday homes and campsites, up from 2.0 billion in 2005. Almost half of them now belong to foreign guests, and the rest to domestic guests travelling in their own country. Twenty years of who sleeps where, country by country.
Nights spent in the EUBillions of nights, all paid accommodationEU27 · 2005–2025
Year
2025
Nights
billion
Domestic–
Foreign–
Eurostat has no EU total for 2007 and no domestic split for 2006, so the lines break there. The EU's rules for these counts changed in 2012; earlier years are not strictly comparable.
Room 1 · Where
Four countries host 62 of every 100 nights
Italy had 535 million nights in 2025, Spain 513 million, France 472 million and Germany 440 million. Together they hosted 1.96 billion of the EU's 3.1 billion nights. Greece is a distant fifth with 156 million, and Luxembourg, the smallest, had 3.6 million.
Big countries have big numbers, so later chapters also count nights for every resident.
The key rackNights in 2025, one key per countryHover or tap a key
Brass keys: the four largest. Key length is proportional to nights.
Room 2 · 2020
In 2020, the nights halved
The EU went from 2.9 billion nights in 2019 to 1.4 billion in 2020, 50.5% fewer. April 2020 was the emptiest month: 9.8 million nights, against 204.7 million in April 2019, a drop of 95.2%. Summer came partly back: August 2020 had 70.8% of the nights of August 2019.
The yearly total passed its 2019 level again in 2023. The World Health Organization called COVID-19 a pandemic on 11 March 2020; a chart like this shows timing, not cause.
Nights per monthMillions, EU27Jan 2015 – Jul 2026
Not seasonally adjusted: the peaks are every August.
Room 3 · Guests
Foreign guests fell from 47 to 29 of every 100 nights, then came back
A foreign guest is anyone staying outside their country of residence, so a German in Austria counts. In 2019, 47.3% of the EU's nights were foreign guests'. In 2020 their nights fell by 69.7% and domestic guests' by 33.4%, so the foreign share dropped 18.3 percentage points, to 29.0%.
It was back to 44.0% in 2022 and reached 48.9% in 2025, the highest in the series. Since 2005, foreign guests' nights have grown 78.5% and domestic guests' 40.4%.
100 room keysEvery 100 nights in the EU, by guest2025
Domestic guestsForeign guests
Foreign guests' share% of all nights, EU272005–2025
Room 4 · Rooms
Hotels lost 57% of their nights in 2020. Campsites lost 29%
Hotels hold most of the EU's nights: 1,931 million in 2025, or 61.4%. In 2020 they lost 57.1% of their nights, holiday homes, hostels and other short-stay places 43.6%, and campsites 29.4%.
Since then, campsites (19.5% above 2019 in 2025) and short-stay places (18.7% above) have grown faster than hotels (4.1% above). Short-term rentals booked through online platforms are published by Eurostat as a separate series and may be only partly counted here.
Nights by kind of place2019 = 100, EU272005–2025
Room 5 · Per resident
Croatia has 24.5 tourist nights for every resident. Romania has 1.6
Divide each country's nights by its population and the order turns over. Croatia, with 3.9 million people, had 95 million nights in 2025. Malta (21.7 per resident) and Cyprus (19.4) follow, then Greece (15.1) and Austria (14.6). The EU average is 7.0.
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