Eurostat: tourism, one third of EU tourist beds are in Italy and France

In 2021, the EU had an estimated total of 28.1 million bed places available across 597,000 tourist establishments. According to Eurostat, Italy and France “account for slightly more than one third of the total available capacity”, with 5.1 million bed places each. These Member States are followed by Spain (3.8 million bed places, representing 13% of the total) and Germany (3.5 million; 12%). “Compared with 2020, the year the COVID-19 pandemic started, the number of bed places and the number of establishments remained stable. However, compared with 2019, the number of bed places in 2021 is still -2% (28.8 million) and the number of establishments is even lower (-3%; total of 617,953 establishments)”. Data for 2021 “show that three-quarters (75%) of the 591 million nights spent by international guests in EU tourist accommodation were by tourists coming from other EU Member States, while 16% were spent by tourists coming from other European countries (of which nearly half were UK residents). In 2021, tourists from North America represented 4% of the total nights spent by international guests in EU tourist accommodations, while guests from Asia represented 2%, Central and South America 1%, Africa almost 1%, and Oceania 0.2%.

Gianni Borsa