Which European countries tourists prefer to visit 

Spain is the main tourist destination in the EU

Data from April 2017. Planned article update: December 2017.

This article provides information on recent statistics in relation to tourism in the European Union (EU). Tourism plays an important role in the EU because of its economic and employment potential, as well as its social and environmental implications.

In 2015, Spain was the main tourist destination in the EU for non-residents (people coming from abroad) with 21.3 % of all nights spent in tourist accommodation establishments in the EU.

Across the EU, the four most popular destinations for non-residents were Spain (270 million nights), Italy (193 million nights), France (130 million nights) and the United Kingdom (118 million nights), which together
accounted for more than half (56.2 %) of total nights spent by non-residents in the EU.

Main statistical findings

Tourism — demand and supply

Residents (aged 15 and above) from within the EU-28 made an estimated 1.2 billion tourism trips in 2015, for personal or business purposes. The majority (58.2 %) of the total number of trips made were short trips of one to three nights (see Table 1), while three quarters (74.8 %) of all trips made were to domestic destinations, with the remainder abroad.

In some EU Member States, over half of the total number of tourism trips made in 2015 were to destinations abroad; this was the case for Luxembourg, Belgium, Malta and Slovenia (as well as Switzerland). However, 10 % or less of the trips taken by residents of Romania, Spain and Portugal were abroad. These figures appear to be influenced by both the size of the Member States and their geographical location (smaller and more northerly countries tended to report a higher propensity for their residents to travel abroad).

It is estimated that 60 % of the EU-28’s population aged 15 or over took part in tourism for personal purposes in 2014 (aggregates for 2015 not yet available), in other words they made at least one tourist trip for personal purposes during the year. Again, large differences can be observed between the EU Member States, as this participation rate ranged from 26.0 % in Romania to 88.2 % in Finland.

From the supply perspective, it is estimated that there were just over 578 thousand tourist accommodation establishments active within the EU-28 in 2015 and that together they provided more than 31 million bed places. Nearly one third (32.1 %) of all the bed places in the EU-28 were concentrated in just two of the EU Member States, namely France (5.1 million bed places) and Italy (4.9 million bed places), followed by the United Kingdom (data are for 2013), Spain and Germany.

During recent years, the number of nights spent in tourist accommodation establishments has generally shown an upward trend. However, there was a short-lived downturn in the number of nights spent in tourist accommodation establishments in 2008 and 2009 as a consequence of the financial and economic crisis: the number of tourism nights in the EU-28 fell by 0.6 % in 2008 and by a further 2.1 % in 2009. In 2010, however, the number of nights spent increased by 4.7 % and this positive development continued, with growth of 3.3 % in 2011, 4.4 % in 2012, 2.2 % in 2013 and 1.5 % in 2014. In 2015, the number of nights spent in tourist accommodation establishments in the EU-28 reached a peak of 2.8 billion nights, up by 3.8 % compared with 2014.

Top destinations in the EU

In 2015, Spain was the most common tourism destination in the EU for non-residents (people coming from abroad), with 270 million nights spent in tourist accommodation establishments, or 21.3 % of the EU-28 total. Across the EU, the top four most popular destinations for non-residents were Spain, Italy (193 million nights), France (130 million nights) and the United Kingdom (118 million nights, estimation based on 2015 monthly data), which together accounted for more than half (56.2 %) of the total nights spent by non-residents in the EU-28. The least common destinations were Luxembourg and Latvia; the effect of the size of these Member States should be considered when interpreting these values.

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Source: eurostat

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