Eurostat: Tourism in EU Showing Strong Recovery Rates – Some Countries Even Surpassed Pre-Pandemic Levels
The tourism industry across EU countries is expected to fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic when the zone saw the sharpest declines.
However, data from Eurostat, the European office for statistics show that the total number of overnight stays recorded in tourism establishments in 2022 reached 2.72 billion, falling behind pre-pandemic levels by 5.6 per cent, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
While in 2019 the number of tourist nights reached 2.88 billion, these numbers dropped to 1.42 billion in 2020 and 1.83 billion in 2021, representing a 91.1 and 48.3 per cent decrease compared to 2022 levels, respectively.
Throughout 2022, tourism rates recovered gradually, with the result being noticed on monthly basis. More specifically, during the first half of 2022 (January-June) nights spent stood 11 per cent below 2019 levels, while in the second half of the year, the number of overnight stays fell behind by merely 1.0 per cent compared to pre-pandemic levels.
The number of international guests has also reached pre-pandemic levels in 2022, with 1.19 million nights spent by such visitors recorded in 2022 compared to 1.36 billion in 2019, representing a 12.6 per cent difference.
However, the number of nights spent by foreign tourists during the pandemic years – 2020 and 2021, when 412.5 million and 587.5 million nights were spent by these tourists, respectively, represents a 188.8 and 102.6 per cent increase recorded in 2022.
As per domestic travel, data show a record number of 1.53 billion nights spent, which is also an increase of 10.9 million compared with 2019, up by 0.7 per cent.
Denmark recorded the best results in terms of nights spent and tourists received in 2022, as 38.4 million nights were recorded – up by 12.3 per cent compared to 34.3 million recorded in 2019. Similarly, the number of nights visitors spent in tourism establishments in the Netherlands increased by 3.9 per cent in 2022, increasing from 123.4 million in 2019 to 128.3 million, while Belgium recorded an increase of 0.5 per cent, recording 42.7 million nights spent during this time. Liechtenstein, Iceland and Norway have also surpassed their pre-pandemic tourism levels so far in 2022.
“Meanwhile, other countries have not yet fully recovered from the pandemic’s impact on tourism. This was particularly the case in Latvia (3.9 million in 2022 compared with 5.5 million in 2019; -29.6 per cent) and Slovakia (12.3 million compared with 17.2 million; -28.3 per cent),” Eurostat explains.
Countries that almost reached their 2019 levels in 2022 include Slovenia, France, Sweden, Portugal, Croatia, Luxembourg, Poland and Spain while countries that have recorded sharp declines include Latvia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Malta, Estonia, Cyprus, Czechia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Italy, Germany, Greece, Austria and Finland.
