Tourism: Eurostat: tourist accommodation sector continues growing in terms of nights spent

Following an increase of 4.2 % in 2015, the number of nights spent in tourist accommodation in the EU continued to grow in 2016, by 3.0 %, reaching nearly 2.9 billion nights .

These figures are published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

More than two out of three of these nights were spent in five Member States: Spain (16 %) , France (14 %), Italy (14 %), Germany (14 %) and the United Kingdom (10 %) (see Table 1).

Looking at the distribution by type of accommodation, hotels and similar accommodation were clearly the most popular (65 %), followed by holiday and other short-stay accommodation such as rented apartments (22 %) and camping grounds, recreational vehicle parks and trailer parks (13 %). However, there were significant regional differences: in Cyprus and Malta, hotels covered almost the entire market for rented accommodation; in Denmark, Luxembourg, France and Sweden the market share of campsites was more than double the average for the whole of the EU.

All three types of tourist accommodation showed increases for 2016. The number of nights spent in hotels increased by 3.5 %. Nights spent in holiday and other short-stay accommodation and nights spent at campsites increased by 3.5 % and 0.1 % respectively .

The increase at EU level reflected national developments. In only four Member States - the United Kingdom, Belgium, France and Luxembourg - did the rate decrease in 2016. Bulgaria, Cyprus, Slovakia, Poland and Portugal recorded growth of over 10.0 %.

The increase in nights spent in 2016 was due to both residents and non-residents

The overall increase of 3.0 % for nights spent in 2016 was mainly due to the increase of nights spent by foreign visitors (+4.7 %) but also of nights spent by residents(+1.7 %) .

The nights spent by non-residents grew by 4.1 % in 2015 and increased further by +4.7 % in 2016. Bulgaria, Ireland and Cyprus recorded grows of more than 15 % in 2016 compared with 2015. However, a decrease was observed in three Member States, with Belgium recording the biggest drop of -9.5 %, followed by France (-5.0 %) and Luxembourg (-0.7 %) .

Following an increase of 4.2 % in 2015, the number of nights spent by domestic tourists in the EU grew at a slower pace in 2016 (+1.7 %) . The biggest increase was recorded in Slovakia (+13.7 %), while a drop was recorded in four Member States: Ireland and the United Kingdom both reporting drop of -8.2 %, Malta (-6.6 %) and Luxembourg (-1.8 %) .

Taking into account the population of the country (tourism intensity), Malta, Croatia, Cyprus and Austria recorded the highest number of nights spent per inhabitant over the year 2016 (20.7, 18.6, 18.1 and 13.6 nights respectively). In the EU, an average of 5.6 guest nights was recorded in relation to the overall population of 510.3 million.

The top 20 regions accounted for nearly 36 % of all nights spent in the EU

The top destination country (Spain) accounted for 16 % of all guest nights in rented accommodation in the year 2016. Looking at regional data, the top two regions at NUTS 2 level attracted more than 6 % of all guest nights in the EU during 2016. These regions were the Canary Islands and Catalonia .

The top 10 regions represented nearly one quarter of all nights spent (24 %), and the top 20 accounted for 36 % of all nights spent in the 272 regions of the EU .

German and British tourists accounted for more than one in three non-resident nights in EU tourist accommodation

In 2016, more than half (54 %) of nights in tourist accommodation were spent by residents, travelling inside their own country .

The majority of the 46 % of nights spent by non-residents were by tourists coming from other EU Member States (74 %), while 10 % were spent by tourists coming from other European countries. Only 16 % of non-resident nights were spent by tourists from other continents .

German residents accounted for 20.2 % of the total non-resident nights in EU tourist accommodation, followed by British (13.3 %) and Dutch (6.6 %) tourists . For 9 out of the 27 Member States - excluding the German domestic market - the greatest number of tourists came from Germany. For the remaining 18 Member States, nights spent by German tourists were their second or third market.

Coastal areas accounted for nearly half of all nights spent

Data for the accommodation sector is available by type of locality, i.e. the coastalnature or the degree of urbanisation of the location.

In 2016, nearly half of the nights spent in EU tourist accommodation (47 %) were spent in coastal areas . Besides Malta which is 100 % coastal country, this ratio exceeded 90 % in Cyprus, Greece, Croatia and Denmark. Leaving aside the five landlocked countries (the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Hungary, Austria and Slovakia), the proportion of coastal areas in total nights spent was below 20 % only in Germany and Romania. When distinguishing by type of accommodation, coastal tourism was particularly important for campsites, with 60 % of total nights spent .

In terms of degree of urbanisation, there was a good balance between nights spent in cities, towns and rural areas, each accounting for roughly one third of the nights spent . National data shows a mix of city tourism and countryside or non-urban coastal tourism. In Latvia, Estonia and the United Kingdom, nights spent in cities accounted for more than 50% of the total number of nights spent in the country. This is very likely due to the relative attractiveness or popularity of the capital regions. In Austria, Croatia, Greece and Denmark the thinly populated municipalities were far more popular – very likely because of the importance of the seaside or the mountains for the tourism sector in these countries.

The capacity of the tourist accommodation sector is estimated at over 31 million bed places

In 2016, the EU could offer more than 31 million bed places to accommodate tourists, spread over more than 610 000 establishments. In terms of bed places, France (5.1 million) and Italy (4.9 million) accounted for nearly one third of total available capacity .

The comparability of this data is affected by the fact that countries apply data collection thresholds. In many countries, establishments having fewer than ten bed places are not covered by these statistics, but the threshold applied is not identical across the European Union.

For countries where a breakdown by size class is available, 60 % of hotels and similar accommodation establishments had 25 bedrooms or fewer, 32 % had between 25 and 99 and 8 % were large establishments with a capacity of 100 or more bedrooms .

The average occupancy rate of bed places in hotels during 2016 was 46 %

Comparing the capacity data in terms of available beds or rooms with the occupancy data in terms of nights spent gives an indicator of the occupancy rates. At EU level, the net occupancy rate of bed places in hotels was 46.3 % in 2016. The highest occupancy rates were recorded in Cyprus (71.3 %), Malta (64.4 %) and Spain (61.3 %) .

In terms of bedroom occupancy (regardless of how many guests stayed in the room), hotels in Malta recorded an occupancy rate of 74.0 %, followed by Ireland .

For most of the countries for which a breakdown by size class is available, occupancy rates increase with the size of the establishments.

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