According to the European Office for Statistics, a significant number of international tourists came from the extra-EU and European Union countries.

Consequently, they accounted for 43% of the total nights spent in tourist accommodations across the EU in the previous year.

Out of all the countries that recorded record levels of nights spent, Spain took the lead in registering the most significant number of nights stayed by international tourists.

Top countries

As per the published report, 11 out of 27 EU countries recorded the highest number of international tourists.

In three of these 11 EU countries, 90% of the nights spent in accommodations were attributed to travelers from abroad.

Specifically, 92% of the nights spent in Malta were by international tourists, while Croatia and Cyprus recorded foreign travelers’ nights spent stood at 91%.

In Greece and Luxembourg, the foreign market accounted for 84% and 86% of the overall nights spent throughout tourist accommodations.

Meanwhile, Portugal, Spain, Austria, and Slovenia recorded international tourist nights spent between 60 and 70%.

Spain and Italy

The most significant number of nights spent by internationally traveling tourists came from Spain and Italy. The former registered 270 million nights, while Italy recorded 201 million nights.

Together, the two countries and the overall nights spent accounted for around 40% of all foreign tourism nights spent in accommodations located across the EU.

According to the European Office for Statistics, the influx of foreign tourists plays a major role in boosting the economy of a country.

It went on to say that the rising number of international tourists has been contributing to a better mutual understanding of the people and culture.

Consequently, a high dependency on tourists can also make a destination more vulnerable, especially in cases of external shocks like pandemics or natural disasters.

In addition to international travelers, the report by the relevant authority also revealed numbers of domestic travelers.

In the EU, locals accounted for 57% of the overall nights spent in various accommodations located throughout the EU countries.

UNWTO report

In another report published by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), EU countries registered around 45.8% of all arrivals of international tourists in the previous year.

Moreover, six EU countries made it onto the list of the top ten destinations across the world, namely Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, and Greece.

Despite being heavily affected by the coronavirus pandemic and its restrictions, the tourism and hospitality industry across the EU countries is readily recovering.

In another report published by the European Office for Statistics, it was revealed that the overall number of overnight stays recorded in tourism establishments, across the EU, reached 2.72 billion.

This number was just 5.6% less than the number recorded before the pandemic hit.

As per the relevant authority, back in 2019, the overall number of tourist nights spent was recorded at 2.88 billion.

However, these figures significantly decreased in 2020, when the tourist nights spent stood at 1.42 billion, but went up to 1.82 billion in 2021.