A tourism dashboard for greener, digitally savvy and resilient EU destinations

A new tool to improve access to statistics and policy-relevant indicators for tourism, and support destinations and public authorities in tracking their progress in the green and digital transition

Illustration showing a map and data search

The Commission launches today the EU Tourism Dashboard , a new tool to help policy makers at country and regional level to steer policies and strategies in the tourism ecosystem. The aim of this tool is to improve access to statistics and policy-relevant indicators for tourism, supporting destinations and public authorities in tracking their progress in the green and digital transition.

The tourism ecosystem was one of the most heavily affected by the measures put in place to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic. Making it more resilient through the twin transition became a strong policy priority. The dashboard will support both competent authorities and businesses to identify vulnerabilities and define strategies for improvement.

The dashboard will allow tourism decision makers - be it countries or regions - to identify socio-economic vulnerabilities, thus supporting the development of effective strategies for tourism. Using a range of consistent and evidence-based indicators at national and regional level, tourism decision makers and managers will be able to recognise vulnerabilities such as high seasonality or high dependence on visitors from few origins as well as identify key marketing advantages such as excellent bathing waters or diversity of tourism offers.

The dashboard is an interactive web platform, visualising statistical data and newly developed tourism indicators, organised under four areas: environmental impacts, digitalisation, socio-economic vulnerability, and basic tourism descriptors.  The data and indicators can be consulted in two ways: through destination, where information is available for one single tourist destination (country or region), and through an indicator map view, where the user can see how a specific indicator varies across tourist destinations.

The Dashboard is made available at its launch in all official EU languages through machine translation.

The EU Tourism Dashboard has been developed by the JRC and the Commission’s Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs , following a request by EU countries in 2021 to design a tool for the tourism ecosystem. The initiative contributes to the Transition Pathway for Tourism published in February 2022, which was created in collaboration with public and private EU tourism stakeholders to identify 27 areas of actions for the green and digital transition and for improving the resilience of EU tourism.

Related links

More news on a similar topic.

Image showing PV panels on roofs, water body, along railway and on road

  • News announcement
  • 14 February 2024

PV on rooftops and beyond can surpass targets while preserving the environment

eurostat tourism dashboard

  • 9 February 2024

Women in science at JRC: Four researchers open the doors to their labs

eurostat tourism dashboard

  • General publications
  • 25 January 2024

Addressing Global Water Quality Challenges: Collaborative Solutions and Future Prospects

Someone picks up a plastic bottle on a path bordered by fields

The Impact of COVID-19 on the International Tourism Industry

The current COVID-19 crisis has led to national quarantines and global travel bans, bringing international travel to a standstill. These measures are expected to have a long lasting and destructive effect on international tourism. In this data story, our editorial team discusses the importance of the tourism industry to national economies, the impact that COVID-19 will most likely have, and the national and European measures that are implemented to mitigate the effect of the economic crisis.

The current COVID-19 crisis has led to national quarantines and global travel bans, bringing international travel to a standstill. According to a research performed by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) , 100% of UNWTO countries impose restrictions on travelling and 72% have completely closed their borders to international tourism. The exact travel restrictions per country can be found in a global dashboard created by the Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX) using data from the World Food Programme (WFP) . With the cancellation of business trips, holidays, and weekend getaways, the tourism industry is thus heavily impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.

The travel restrictions affect hotels, camping sites or other types of accommodation, but also restaurants, museums, and other activities frequented by local as well as international tourists alike. The pandemic is also expected to have a longer lasting effect on international tourism, while other economic sectors might recover more swiftly. Especially for countries where the national economy relies heavily on the tourism industry, it is crucial to closely monitor the situation and provide measures to protect the industry and mitigate the economic impact of this crisis.

In this data story we take a closer look at available data and data-related initiatives that help us get insights into the contribution of tourism to the national economies of European countries, consider the effects of the decrease in international tourism, and examine the measures taken by countries to support the sectors.

The tourism industry as part of national economies

According to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) tourism generates 10,3% of global GDP, making it an important driver of the global economy. For countries such as Spain and Italy the contribution of tourism to their GDP is even higher than the global average, 14,3% and 13,0% of their GDP in 2019, respectively. Using 2018 data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) , the chart in figure 1 shows another assessment of the contribution of tourism to national GDP in the pre-crisis situation for the available countries.

Graph

Figure 1: Chart on percentage of GDP contributed by tourism, source: OECD

Tourism is also one of the most labour-intensive sectors of our economies. According to the WTTC , tourism supports 330 million jobs worldwide, which are at risk in the current situation. To create a better understanding of the number of people working in the tourism industry, the European Data Portal created a visual (see figure 2) based on 2019 data from Eurostat . The figure shows information on the percentage of the active population working in tourism-related sectors.

Europe map

Figure 2: European overview of percentage of population employed in tourism-related sectors, source: Eurostat

Tourism decrease caused by COVID-19

Travel bans make tourism one of the industries that is hit the hardest by the COVID-19 crisis. In Europe, several countries already show that the number of nights spent in tourist accommodation was halved in March 2020 compared to previous years. This is visualised for the available countries by the European Data Portal in figure 3, which was created based on data from Eurostat .

Graph 3

Figure 3: The number of nights spend at tourist accommodation in the first 3-4 months of 2018-2020, source: Eurostat . Note: The available European countries are Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Norway, Serbia, Spain, and Sweden.

The UNWTO is the United Nations agency that oversees the promotion of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism. They published a summary of their World Tourism Barometer in May 2020 with a special focus on the impact of COVID-19 on the tourism industry. To get a clear overview of the content and visualisations a dashboard was created, where, among other subjects, the impact of COVID-19 on the tourism industry is assessed, highlighting the most vulnerable destinations, and comparing impact vs past crises in the sector. In the first quarter of 2020, international tourism already decreased by 22%, with a decline of 57% in March. Creating a forecast for the rest of 2020 is complex due to the rapidly changing circumstances, but the UNWTO plotted three scenarios depending on the course of the virus and the duration of the travel restrictions and estimated a possible drop in international tourist arrivals between 58% and 78% in 2020 . The effect of the scenarios on international tourism can be seen in figure 4.

Graph 3

Figure 4: Three scenarios created by the UNWTO about the effect on international tourism.

The Word Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) represents the private sector of travel and tourism. They state that their mission is to ensure the sector is seamless, secure, safe, inclusive, and sustainable. The WTTC also conducted a research to assess the impact of COVID-19 on the travel and tourism industry . They conclude that the industry will lose 2.7 trillion USD in 2020, and that millions of jobs are compromised by the crisis. Currently, estimates are that the Asia-Pacific region will be most heavily impacted with 63.4 million job losses. For Europe, their research suggests that 13 million jobs in the travel and tourism sector will be lost, resulting in a tourism GDP loss of €633 billion [1] .

Measures to mitigate impact on tourism sector

To mitigate the economic impact of this crisis and to protect the tourism industry, governments and institutions are already taking several measures. The European Parliament clearly summarised the measures taken at national and European level to support the industry. Although the European Commission (EC) has limited authority to intervene in the industry since it can only support, coordinate, or supplement Member States' actions in this area, a set of responses to the COVID-19 outbreak to support both at European and on national level has been defined. Among other things, the EC offers legal analyses to Member States and created a network of industry associations to facilitate their sharing of experience. The EC also reserved €37 billion for the Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative to provide liquidity for businesses and support people who lost their job. When looking at national levels, we see that most EU Member States already announced measures to support the economy, including the tourism industry. For more information on financial measures in general see one of our previous data stories . The measures include tax moratoriums, extended deadlines for payments, as well as wage subsidies, loans, and guarantees for workers. To illustrate these measures, an interactive dashboard created by UNWTO shows per country and per institution the taken measures, which can be seen in figure 5.

International tourism and COVID-19

Figure 5: Screenshot of UNWTO’s dashboard on measures to protect and support the travel and tourism industry.

Tourism during and beyond the COVID-19 crisis

Recently some European countries, such as Italy and Spain , announced that they will reopen the borders and restart tourism shortly. To help the tourism industry restart after months of lockdown, the European Commission presented a package of guidelines and recommendations to help Member States to gradually lift travel restrictions and allow businesses to reopen. During the process of easing the restrictions it is important to ensure safety for all travellers and take the necessary health precautions. Overall, Member States should keep in mind the epidemiological situation in other Member States, provide proper containment measures throughout the whole journey, and consider economic and/or social prioritisation of cross-border movements in key areas.

However, we are currently in the middle of the crisis, making the prediction for the future of the industry difficult. The managing director at the WTTC believes that it could take up to 10 months for the tourism sector to recover once the virus is under control. Will things permanently change regarding the amount and the way we travel? At what speed can restrictions be eased while ensuring safety at all time? Can the restrictions only be completely lifted once a vaccine is created or will we find a solution in the meantime? These are all examples of questions policy makers are facing today. In the meantime, we can make use of the opportunity to explore our own countries’ touristic offerings and support local tourism.

Looking for more open data related news? Visit the EDP news archive and follow us on Twitter , Facebook or LinkedIn .

[1] Exchange rates as of 02 January 2020.

Commission (Eurostat) publishes first statistics on short-stay accommodation booked via collaborative economy platforms

tnshort-stay_accommodation-01-topnews-03-05.jpg

The data published today are a first step and will be regularly updated by Eurostat. In particular, they cover national, regional and city-level data on the number of stays booked and the number of nights spent in accommodation booked via these four platforms. Such information will (i) contribute to more complete statistics on tourism accommodation in Europe, (ii) allow public authorities to better understand the development of the collaborative economy (in particular, short-term accommodation rentals services) and (iii) support evidence-based policies.

Prior to today's publication, European official statistics provided only limited coverage of this part of the short-stay accommodation sector since data on rentals of holiday homes, apartments and rooms in otherwise private buildings are often outside the scope of existing tourism registers and surveys. The figures published today are an important step towards closing this gap. They cover accommodation booked via Airbnb, Booking, Expedia Group and Tripadvisor in 2018 and 2019, offering valuable insights into the importance of the collaborative economy for the tourism sector before the COVID pandemic.

The Commission aims at publishing in the course of the year further data on short-term accommodation rentals provided by these platforms for 2020. They will offer useful inputs for policy makers and will feed into the process of co-creating a transition pathway for a more sustainable, innovative and resilient tourism ecosystem.

Commissioner Gentiloni , Commissioner for Economy, said: “This successful collaboration between Eurostat and the four main platforms for short-term rental accommodation is a model for providing more comprehensive and reliable statistics through access to privately held data. The figures published today are an important source of information for European public authorities and can contribute to better policy-making, while protecting personal information.”

Commissioner Breton , Commissioner for the Internal Market, said: “The COVID-19 pandemic heavily impacted the tourism industry, a key sector of the EU's economy. Like other European industries, the future of tourism will hinge on our collective ability to transition to a greener, more digital and resilient future. By 2030, Europe should be a top quality destination known globally for its sustainable offer, and attracting responsible and environmentally conscious travelers. The comprehensive data on short-term accommodation rentals published today will support public authorities in developing evidence-based policies.”

Key findings

  • In 2019 (the year before the COVID-19 pandemic, which strongly hit the tourism sector), guests spent more than 554 million nights in an accommodation booked via Airbnb, Booking, Expedia Group or Tripadvisor in the EU. This means that, on an average day, around 1.5 million guests slept in a bed booked through one of these four platforms. The number of nights spent in short-term accommodation booked via the four platforms grew by 14 % between 2018 and 2019.
  • The top city destinations for bookings through one of the four platforms were: (i) the urban areas of Paris (15.1 million guest nights); (ii) Barcelona (11.3 million); (iii) Rome (10.4 million); (iv) Lisbon (10.5 million); and, (v) Madrid (8.3 million).
  • The five most popular destination countries for stays booked via the four private platforms were: (i) Spain (112 million guest nights); (ii) France (109 million); (iii) Italy (83 million guest nights); (iv) Germany (40 million); and (v) Portugal (33 million).The 20 most popular regions in the EU account for nearly half (48%) of the total number of guest nights booked via the four platforms. Most of these top 20 regions are located in Spain (six regions), France or Italy (five respectively), while two regions are in Portugal, one in Croatia and one in Hungary. In the three most popular regions, guests booked more than 20 million nights in 2019: Andalusia (26 million), Adriatic Croatia (25 million) and Catalonia (21 million). In 2019, these three regions accounted for 13% of the total guest nights spent in the EU that were booked via the four platforms. The regional breakdown can be found in the map below.

The full release package, which is available here , includes a detailed article on Eurostat's ' Statistics Explained ' platform and tables covering data for more than 200 European cities and all regions (defined at NUTS3 level), but also analyses the country of origin of the guest and the seasonality of the number of bookings and of guest nights.

Map presenting number of short-stay accommodation booked via collaborative economy platforms

The collaborative economy covers a great variety of sectors and is rapidly growing across Europe. In the tourism sector, the collaborative economy provides many exciting opportunities for citizens as consumers, as well as for micro-entrepreneurs and SMEs. At the same time, its rapid development has led to challenges, particularly in popular tourist destinations. As a result, cities and other communities are seeking to strike a balance between promoting tourism, with the economic benefits it brings, and maintaining the integrity of local communities.

To promote a balanced development of the collaborative economy, in 2016, the Commission issued Guidelines on how existing EU rules apply to the collaborative economy. A series of workshops in 2017 and 2018 identified policy principles and good practices specifically on collaborative short-term accommodation services.

In the short-term rental sector, the Commission is also working with cities around Europe to address issues that have arisen as a result of the rapid growth of collaborative short-term accommodation rentals and maintains a continuous exchange with local regulators. These discussions, which will now benefit also from the statistics published today, address possible policy actions and good practices for consideration of public authorities and other stakeholders when putting into place policy measures in line with EU law.

In March 2020, the Commission reached a landmark agreement with Airbnb, Booking, Expedia Group and Tripadvisor on data sharing. The agreement, signed between each platform and Eurostat (on behalf of the European Commission), allows Eurostat to obtain key data from the four collaborative platforms and publish on its website experimental statistics on short-term accommodation rentals concluded through these platforms. Among other data, platforms agreed to share, on a continuous basis, figures on the number of nights booked and the number of guests.

The privacy of citizens, including guests and hosts, is protected in line with applicable EU legislation and data will not allow individual citizens or property owners to be identified. The data provided by the four platforms is then subject to statistical validation and aggregated by Eurostat. Eurostat publishes data for all Member States as well as many individual regions and cities by combining the information obtained from the platforms.

More Information

Landmark agreement

Flyer on Flash Eurobarometer Survey on Collaborative economy (2018)

In-depth statistical article on the topic

Overview of Commission policy actions on Collaborative economy

Eurostat dataset on collaborative economy

Related posts from the blog

Share this page

eurostat tourism dashboard

  • 9 Solutions
  • Topics: eGovernment
  • Data Visualisation and Open Data
  • Open Data Support
  • Open Government

Commission boosts data sharing and innovation for a sustainable and resilient EU tourism ecosystem

Data sharing and innovation for a sustainable eu tourism ecosystem.

eurostat tourism dashboard

To support the above, on 20 July 2023 the Commission presented the building blocks for a common European tourism data space . This data space will serve all stakeholders in the tourism ecosystem allow them to share a broad range of data to inform the development of innovative tourism services, improve the sustainability of the tourism ecosystem and strengthen its economic competitiveness. 

More specifically, the common European Tourism Data Space aims to: 

Facilitate data-sharing from diverse sources 

Promote data access by a wide range of users 

Foster a consistent, trustworthy and efficient framework for the governance of this space 

Offer interoperability across data domains, as well as sectoral data spaces (i.e. mobility, energy, environment and health 

Get more information below: 

Communication on A Common European Data Space  

EU Tourism ecosystem  

Transition Pathway for Tourism  

EU Tourism Dashboard  

UN Tourism | Bringing the world closer

The first global dashboard for tourism insights.

UN Tourism Tourism Dashboard

  • UN Tourism Tourism Dashboard
  • Language Services
  • Publications

share this content

  • Share this article on facebook
  • Share this article on twitter
  • Share this article on linkedin

UN Tourism Data Dashboard

The UN Tourism Data Dashboard – provides statistics and insights on key indicators for inbound and outbound tourism at the global, regional and national levels. Data covers tourist arrivals, tourism share of exports and contribution to GDP, source markets, seasonality and accommodation (data on number of rooms, guest and nights)

Two special modules present data on the impact of COVID 19 on tourism as well as a Policy Tracker on Measures to Support Tourism

The UN Tourism/IATA Destination Tracker

Un tourism tourism recovery tracker.

International Tourism Results

UN Tourism Tourism Data Dashboard

  • International tourist arrivals and receipts and export revenues
  • International tourism expenditure and departures
  • Seasonality
  • Tourism Flows
  • Accommodation
  • Tourism GDP and Employment
  • Domestic Tourism

International Tourism and COVID-19"

International Tourism and COVID-19

  • The pandemic generated a loss of 2.6 billion international arrivals in 2020, 2021 and 2022 combined
  • Export revenues from international tourism dropped 62% in 2020 and 59% in 2021, versus 2019 (real terms) and then rebounded in 2022, remaining 34% below pre-pandemic levels.
  • The total loss in export revenues from tourism amounts to USD 2.6 trillion for that three-year period.
  • International tourist arrivals reached 88% of pre-pandemic levels in January-December 2023

COVID-19: Measures to Support Travel and Tourism

  • EFTA SharePoint
  • EEA Webtool
  • Publications
  • Public Journal

Pandemic crisis and economic trends: the tourism sector in European and EFTA countries

eurostat tourism dashboard

Some results:

- the second quarter 2020 marked the low point in the decline of quarterly gdp since 2017 for all countries under consideration, with the efta countries being affected to a somewhat lesser degree., - efta countries have profited from a compensation effect in 2020 and 2021 with domestic tourism compensating at least partially for losses of foreign tourism in terms of total nights spent., - number of passengers decreased over all modes of transport (air, railway, maritime) in 2020 and 2021, with the largest amplitudes in air passenger transport. recent data for 2021 shows signs of slow recovery., introduction.

The recurrent tendency of national economies to pass through periods of expansion followed by contractions led to the idea that the underlying tendency is that of  a business cycle. In Official Statistics, the business cycle is often described through a series of expansions and contractions in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Production and price indices as well as other indicators, such as e.g. employment, often complement such analysis.

The current Covid pandemic situation caused a global economic recession, starting in most countries in the beginning of 2020 after a period of economic slowdown in 2019 [1] . Measures to limit the spread of the Covid virus, such as “lockdowns” and the accompanying interruptions in delivery and supply chains as well as a slowdown in consumer activities advanced the recession, causing firm bankruptcies and rapid increases in unemployment.

One of the areas that is amongst the most severely affected ones is the tourism sector. Although latest releases from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) [2] revealed increased bookings for the Easter and summer periods 2022, the European travel and tourism sector’s contribution to GDP only grew by less than a quarter in 2021. After a worldwide loss of about 62 million travel jobs in 2020, the sector employment remained almost stagnant (+0.7%) in 2021 [3] . According to WTTC’s latest projections from October 2021 this tendency could be followed by an increase of 18% in 2022.

Shifting away from the worldwide situation and focussing instead on the European economy, the present publication intends to provide some empirical facts on the current situation in the tourism sector while paying special attention to data from EFTA countries. Official Statistics in the European Statistical System (ESS), to which all EFTA countries adhere, reacted to the need for key figures throughout the pandemic with the provision of a wide range of statistics, in order to provide a baseline against which the impact of the crises can be measured and its development be evaluated. The European Recovery Dashboard [4] provides in this regard an overview on indicators that display the recent economic development in several areas.

In order to first convey a more general picture of the current economic situation in Europe we will first present some figures on the latest GDP developments for the EU 27, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. As will become evident then, the second quarter 2020 marked the low point in the decline of quarterly GDP since 2017 for all countries under consideration, with the EFTA countries being affected to a somewhat lesser degree.

The tendency observed for quarterly GDP in the second quarter of 2020 is also clearly reflected in the number of overnight stays in European tourist accommodations in this period for EFTA countries as well as for the top three tourist destinations in the EU. Interesting in this context is how far domestic overnight stays have compensated for foreign ones.

Finally, we will look at passenger transport in different modes (air, railway and maritime) in order to convey an impression of the economic effects of the pandemic in this area. As will become clear then, all modes of passenger transport have been negatively affected by the pandemic, although to varying degrees.

Signs of economic recovery: GDP

GDP is one of the key indicators used to describe economic activity, and therefore quarterly GDP estimates usually receive a lot of attention when assessing short-term economic development. An economic recession can be defined according to several criteria, but a frequently used criterion is two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP. In order to describe the severity of the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic we look at the development in quarterly GDP volume in the period 2017-2021.

Figure 1 shows the development of quarterly GDP volumes for the EU-27 aggregate and the EFTA countries. It was evident that the economic activity in the EU-27 and the EFTA countries Iceland, Norway and Switzerland not only entered into an economic slowdown in the first half of 2020, but according to the criteria above also a recession with two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. The EU-27 as a whole experienced a larger decline in quarterly GDP from the fourth quarter 2019 to the second quarter 2020 with an overall drop of 14 per cent in this period compared to the EFTA countries: the GDP of Iceland fell by 12 per cent in the same period, whereas the GDP of Norway and Switzerland fell by 6 and 8 per cent respectively. Looking at the quarterly changes rate in GDP volume from a longer perspective, quarterly GDP fell by 1.8 and 2.9 per cent for EU-27 during the first and second quarters of 2019 respectively. These quarterly changes observed during the financial crisis of the late 2000s appear very modest compared to the drop of 11.3 per cent from the first to the second quarter 2020 in quarterly GDP for EU-27, which illustrates the severe impact the pandemic had on economic activity in 2020.

As the economic slowdown was closely connected to the restrictions introduced during the pandemic, one would anticipate a gradual recovery when such restrictions are removed. This  could be observed by the growth in GDP in the period from the second quarter 2020 and onwards for both the EU-27 and the EFTA countries. However, as can be seen from figure 1 the economic growth following the first half 2020 has been unstable, even with periods of economic slowdown. While the GDP volumes of Norway and Switzerland surpassed the level before the pandemic towards the end of 2021, the GDP of EU-27 is at the about the same level as in the fourth quarter 2019 and lower for Iceland.

eurostat tourism dashboard

Fig. 1: Quarterly Gross Domestic Product, chain-linked volume, seasonally and calendar adjusted data, 2015=100. Data for Iceland seasonally adjusted only. Data from Liechtenstein not available.

Because of the restrictions introduced on travel, the tourism sector was one of the sectors that experienced a marked economic downturn during the pandemic. This becomes also evident in figure 2, which shows the development in quarterly Gross Value Added (GVA) [5] volume for the EU-27, and the EFTA countries Norway and Switzerland. As there is no single available estimate for the tourism sector from quarterly national accounts, we look at the closest available aggregate, which also includes the sectors wholesale and retail trade, transport, accommodation and food service activities. From the fourth quarter 2019 to the second quarter 2020, GVA dropped markedly for these sectors, by about 25 per cent for EU-27, and about 13 per cent for both Norway and Switzerland. Again, the drop in economic activity was larger for the EU-27 compared to the two EFTA countries Norway and Switzerland. Moreover, the following recovery was substantial from second to third quarter 2020 for these economies. As was observed with the overall quarterly GDP the recovery was not stable and with declining economic activity towards the end of 2020 and early 2021. Figure 2 also shows that the GVA for these sectors is still at a lower level in the third quarter 2021 compared to quarter four 2019 (before the pandemic began) for EU-27 and Switzerland. Together, these findings indicate that the recovery was not complete nor was there continuous growth, which is likely linked to the continued impact of the pandemic restrictions during this period.

eurostat tourism dashboard

Fig. 2: Quarterly Gross Value Added in wholesale and retail trade, transport, accommodation and food service activities (NACE G-I), chain-linked volume, seasonally and calendar adjusted data, 2015=100. Data from Iceland and Liechtenstein not available.

Nights spent in tourism accommodation: The overall picture

Figure 3 illustrates the total nights spent (national and international) in tourism accommodation of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland from early January 2018 to the end of November 2021. Overall development in nights spent is marked by seasonal fluctuations which are characteristic for the tourism sector. As can be seen from figure 3, the seasonality for the alpine countries Switzerland and Liechtenstein differs from Norway and Iceland with respect to a pronounced winter season in addition to the summer period.

In contrast to the usual seasonal fluctuations, the number of overnight stays followed the consequences of the measures against the pandemic. The drop of nights spent in EFTA countries in April 2020 followed the lockdown implemented in March 2020. This trend also holds for the alpine countries, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. All four countries stand out with the number of nights spent in summer 2020 which was followed by an important drop. As the latest data from 2021 indicate, the tendency shows an upward trend although not attaining the pre-pandemic level of 2019 so far.

eurostat tourism dashboard

Fig.3 : Total nights spent in tourist accommodation, EFTA countries.

Germany, Italy and Spain are amongst the largest tourism destinations in the EU. Therefore, we focus in the second step on the total number of nights spent in tourist accommodations in these countries in the same period from 2018 to 2021. As can be seen in figure 4, over the whole observation period Italy was the country with the highest number of nights spent in the summer period, followed by Spain and Germany. This ranking changed somewhat in 2020, with Italy still having the highest number of nights spent, now followed by Germany and then Spain. The evolution follows somewhat the pattern of the pandemic measures. As figure 4 indicates,  there were also less nights spent in the summer seasons 2020 and 2021 compared to pre-pandemic levels.

eurostat tourism dashboard

Fig. 4 : Total nights spent in tourist accommodation in selected EU countries .

Nights spent in tourism accommodations by domestic and foreign tourists

The following figures illustrate nights spent in EFTA countries regarding the travellers’ country of residence from January 2018 to the latest data in 2021. Despite an increase in the nights spent in 2021 compared to 2020, the level stays lower than before the pandemic. This section will permit us to observe if there is a compensation effect in accommodation thanks to a higher domestic tourism in comparison to foreign tourism.

eurostat tourism dashboard

Fig. 5 : Overnight stays in Iceland

Figure 5 illustrates the nights spent in Iceland. The development is characterised by a seasonal demand in summer mainly from international travellers. There is a reversed tendency in 2020 after sanitary measures had been introduced which caused the closure of many hotels in March and April: the Icelanders spent more nights in tourism accommodations than international travellers. In July 2020, Icelanders represented 63% or 529,648 overnight stays, whereas foreign visitors represented 37%, with 307,784 overnights. Domestic overnights represent an increase of 22% compared to July 2019, but it did not compensate fully the loss of foreigners travelling to Iceland compared to 2019. In summer 2021, Iceland reached again more than 1 million nights in July 2021 in all accommodations, and the foreign nights were again more important with 52% of total nights spent. Again, domestic overnights didn’t compensate for the loss of international tourism as compared to pre-pandemic times in 2019.

eurostat tourism dashboard

Fig. 6 : Overnight stays in Norway

The Norwegian tourism sector is characterised by an important part of domestic nights spent in tourist accommodations. As figure 6 shows, after the lockdown on 12th of March 2020 there was a decrease in demand with only 331,077 nights in April 2020, this is 84% fewer than in April 2019. July 2020 is almost as high as July 2019, due to a compensation effect by the domestic guest nights, accounting for more than 39% compared to July 2019. Despite this good summer season the number of nights spent remain lower than at pre-pandemic level. In August 2021, Statistics Norway recorded the highest number of Norwegian overnights in four years with 3,521,091 domestic overnights. This is 21% more than for the respective month in 2020 and 19% more than 2019. With fewer travel restrictions in place by the end of September 2021 a record number of guest nights was attained in October with a total of 2,362,975 overnights (domestic and international). This represents an increase of nearly 6% compared to 2019. In November 2021 the number of overnights reached the same level as before the pandemic in November 2019.

eurostat tourism dashboard

Fig. 7 : Overnight stays in Switzerland

As figure 7 shows,  the number of domestic overnights in Switzerland are similar to the international figure. In winter 2019/2020, Switzerland experienced an increase in domestic and foreign overnight stays although  first effects of the pandemic-related measures showed effect in February 2020. As the Federal Council announced restrictions for the Swiss population in March 2020, the tourism sector saw a drop in demand with 58% fewer overnights in March and 92% fewer in April as compared to 2019. After measures against Covid had been relaxed in June 2020, the Swiss overnights were rapidly recovering during July and August 2020 with even a stronger demand between July and October 2020 in comparison to 2019 numbers (15,6 millions in 2020 and 12,3 millions in 2019, representing an increase of 27%). Figure 7 shows the importance of domestic overnights in the total numbers of nights spent in Switzerland during summer 2020. The low foreign demand is probably due to the travel restrictions around the world. The following winter season 2020/2021 still shows lower numbers of nights spent in Switzerland in comparison to 2019. However, with 72% more domestic overnights  the number of overnights in March 2021 was higher than in March 2020 although numbers of foreign overnights were still low (minus 23% in comparison to 2020). This difference was less important than in March 2020 where it amounted to minus 66% compared to the same period in 2019 in numbers of nights spent.

To sum up,  EFTA countries have profited from a compensation effect with regard to the domestic tourism in terms of total nights spent. However, this effect did not always outweigh the loss incurred of fewer international travellers. This seems to hold in particular during the off-seasons where nights spent in tourist accommodations remain at a lower level compared to 2019.

Air passenger transport

Over the last decade up to 2020 air transport in Europe has grown rapidly as a result of various factors such as economic growth and integration, liberalisation and higher productivity. It is characterised by seasonal upticks in demand during holiday periods. In 2019, the year before the pandemic a total of 1,034 billion passengers flew from one of the EU27 airports. During the pandemic, the seasonal pattern was still recognisable, albeit on a much lower scale. Restrictions introduced as a response to the pandemic were especially strict in the second quarter of 2020, when air traffic fell to 7,3 million passengers in the 27 member states, which corresponded to only 2,6% of the previous year's passenger volume. Although the aggregate for the 3 rd and 4 th quarters 2021 is not yet available, data from individual member states show a rather slow rebound even though figures are generally considerably higher than in 2020.

eurostat tourism dashboard

Fig. 8 : Air passenger transport in the EU27

As can be seen in figure 14, air transport numbers for the three EFTA countries Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, which have at least one airport, follow a similar pattern, but with important local differences:

The first months of 2020 show a pronounced downward trend for Switzerland: As the country has relatively few national flights and international flights were – because of the various restrictions in different countries - severely limited, its air passenger industry came almost to a complete halt. The second quarter of 2020 saw only 2,4% of the number of passengers (363 077 Passengers) compared to the same period in 2019, presumably flights from Switzerland into the EU. This tendency for Switzerland resembles the one for 2020 of the entire EU with mainly flights within the European market.

In Iceland, which also has few domestic flights and restrictive entry rules, the number of passengers amounted in the second quarter 2020 only to 3,2% of the same quarter in the previous year. The Icelandic passenger numbers for the whole of 2021 are around 59,3% higher than in 2020, which marks a clear upward trend.

In contrast, the development in Norway, where air travel is an important means of domestic transport, was less dramatic: The number of passengers in 2020 dropped to 32,8% compared to 2019 and remained at a low level throughout 2020. In 2021 the passenger numbers grew by 7% compared to 2020, which was still only 35% of 2019.

eurostat tourism dashboard

Fig. 9: Air passenger transport in Iceland, Norway and Switzerland

Railway passenger transport

After a steady increase during several years, the annual EU27 traffic figures dropped from 413,9 million passengers in 2019 to 223,4 million passengers in 2020 – a reduction of 46%. The use of the railways appears to be generally only weakly seasonal, not least because of the largely complementary nature of leisure and commuter traffic. The use of railways varies between the individual countries, which on the one hand has to do with geography and demography, and on the other hand also with the level of development of services and infrastructure. Quarterly figures are not available for all EU27 countries, which is why the following analysis only looks at individual countries. No figures are available for Iceland, which has no railway, and Liechtenstein, whose only railway line is operated by the Austrian railway. For the sake of comparability, the analysis is based on a selection of countries of similar size, such as the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland.

The covid impact on the use of railways was stronger in countries such as the Netherlands or Switzerland whereas the northern countries were somewhat less affected.

It should be noted that the relatively high level of passenger numbers in Switzerland partly depends on the definition of railways: Subways do not count as railways but play an important role in the largest metropolitan areas of all observed countries except Switzerland where suburban trains partly take over the role of subways.

eurostat tourism dashboard

Fig. 10: Railway passenger transport in selected countries

In 2020, all observed countries experienced sharp declines in the number of passengers using railways compared to the previous year. Switzerland (67,8%) and the Czech Republic (66,5%) recorded around a third fewer rail passengers. Compared to 2019, in Sweden, the passenger volume in 2020 was still 63,9%, in Norway 52,3% and in the Netherlands 46,7%. As with all modes of transports considered here, the second quarter 2020 was the weakest in all countries with regard to passenger numbers: compared to the same quarter 2019, passenger volume fell by up to 78,7% in the Netherlands, 66 % in Norway and 57,3% in Switzerland.

Maritime passenger transport

In the period 2017-2020 marine passenger traffic follows a strongly seasonal pattern with peaks in the summer months. This is true for the whole of Europe even though the variation is more pronounced in the Mediterranean countries. This can be seen for example with Norway, where passenger traffic in the first quarter (winter) represents usually only about half of numbers for the third quarter (summer). In Italy and other Mediterranean countries this seasonal difference can mount up to four times for the summer period.

eurostat tourism dashboard

Fig. 11: Maritime passenger transport in EU27

The advent of covid shows how traffic decreased from the outset. In Norway traffic fell from 6,3 million passengers in 2019 to 1,9 million passengers in 2020, hence only 29,7% of that of the year before with the other countries following that tendency although it was less pronounced. It is also a lower percentage than in other Nordic countries such as Sweden (45,6%).

eurostat tourism dashboard

Fig. 12: Maritime passenger transport in selected countries. Data from Iceland and the landlocked countries of Liechtenstein and Switzerland not available.

Click here for a printer friendly version of the publication

Explanatory and methodological notes

The data used in this article were extracted from Eurostat's dissemination database and from the Swiss Statistical Office.

  • Fig. 1: Eurostat, date of extraction 31-01-2022, https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=namq_10_gdp&lang=en
  • Fig. 2: Eurostat, date of extraction 31-01-2022, https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=namq_10_a10&lang=en
  • Fig. 3: Eurostat, date of extraction 09-02-2022, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/TOUR_OCC_NIM/default/table?lang=en&category=tour.tour_indm
  • Fig. 4: Eurostat, date of extraction 09-02-2022, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/TOUR_OCC_NIM/default/table?lang=en&category=tour.tour_indm
  • Fig. 5: Eurostat, date of extraction 09-02-2022, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/TOUR_OCC_NIM/default/table?lang=en&category=tour.tour_indm
  • Fig. 6: Eurostat, date of extraction 09-02-2022, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/TOUR_OCC_NIM/default/table?lang=en&category=tour.tour_indm
  • Fig. 7: Eurostat, date of extraction 09-02-2022, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/TOUR_OCC_NIM/default/table?lang=en&category=tour.tour_indm
  • Fig. 8: Eurostat, date of extraction 22-02-2022, https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=avia_paoc&lang=en
  • Fig. 9: Eurostat, date of extraction 22-02-2022, https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=avia_paoc&lang=en
  • Fig. 10: Eurostat, date of extraction 22-02-2022, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/rail_pa_quartal/default/table?lang=en
  • Fig. 11: Eurostat, date of extraction 22-02-2022, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/mar_pa_qm/default/table?lang=en
  •  Fig. 12: Eurostat, date of extraction 22-02-2022, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/mar_pa_qm/default/table?lang=en

Authors : Marius Andersen, Pascal Bisang, Ambre Crettenand, Volker Täube

EFTA Statistical Office

5, Rue Alphonse Weicker

L-2920 Luxembourg

[email protected]

[1] See also: "The World Economy: Synchronized Slowdown, Precarious Outlook"  IMF Blog. Retrieved 15 April 2020.

[2] See WTTC Presse Release from 21.10.2021.

[3] See WTTC Release on Staff Shortages from December 2021: WTTC-Staff-Shortages.pdf

[4] See: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/recovery-dashboard/

[5] Gross Value Added (GVA): GVA is defined as the value of output minus the  intermediate consumption in National Accounts.

  • EFTA’s full report of the fifth round with Chile 🇨🇱 is now available here ➡️ https://t.co/TJNYvibYAv — 10 months 2 weeks ago
  • EFTA🇮🇸 🇱🇮🇳🇴🇨🇭 parliamentarians visited #India 🇮🇳 to give momentum to the trade agreement negotiations. They met wi… https://t.co/dwCKYu16YK — 10 months 2 weeks ago
  • Thank you for the interesting discussion! #EFTA Parliamentarians are in #Mumbai to meet with business stakeholders… https://t.co/NQUEwyXHbb — 10 months 3 weeks ago

Was the content helpful?

Do something for our planet, print this page only if needed. Even a small action can make an enormous difference when millions of people do it!

All official European Union website addresses are in the europa.eu domain.

Try our suggestions

External Data Spec

Eurostat statistics on Tourism

information.png

Table name:  tour_occ_nim

Related content

Interactive charts.

For references , please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/external/eurostat-statistics-on-tourism-1 or scan the QR code.

PDF generated on 10 Mar 2024, 01:49 AM

EEA Page URL QR

Document Actions

Share with others.

Engineered by: EEA Web Team

Software updated on 26 September 2023 08:13 from version 23.8.18

Software version: EEA Plone KGS 23.9.14

Code for developers

Systems Status

Legal notice

Creative commons license

eurostat tourism dashboard

IMAGES

  1. Tourism in 2022 approaches pre-pandemic levels

    eurostat tourism dashboard

  2. Eurostat: 2022 platform tourism levels surpass 2019 figures

    eurostat tourism dashboard

  3. EU Launches Tourism Dashboard to Support Destinations, Public

    eurostat tourism dashboard

  4. Tourism on the rebound in European Union, booking data shows

    eurostat tourism dashboard

  5. Eurostat Tourism Destination

    eurostat tourism dashboard

  6. EU Tourism Dashboard available for consultation

    eurostat tourism dashboard

VIDEO

  1. Eurostat season's greetings 2024

  2. Mr. Christophe Demunter, EUROSTAT, European Commission

COMMENTS

  1. Overview

    This section provides information on the 2 main components of tourism statistics: data on tourist accommodation, namely capacity and occupancy of tourist accommodation establishments (for example number of bed places, number of nights spent). Eurostat also publishes a separate series on short-stay accommodation offered via online collaborative ...

  2. Tourism statistics

    Tourism participation: 62 % of EU residents made at least one personal trip in 2022. It is estimated that 62 % of the EU population aged 15 or over took part in tourism for personal purposes in 2022, in other words they made at least one tourism trip for personal purposes during the year (such as holidays, leisure, visiting friends and ...

  3. EU tourism statistics and reports

    EU tourism dashboard. The EU tourism dashboard is an online knowledge tool aimed at monitoring the green and digital transitions of the tourism ecosystem to make tourism more resilient and sustainable. The dashboard visualises tourism-relevant data and indicators collected from available, trusted sources covering the tourism ecosystem.

  4. Tourism statistics

    The dashboard is updated every month with the latest available data for each indicator. Source data for tables and graphs ... No 1051/2011 of 20 October 2011 implementing Regulation (EU) No 692/2011 concerning European statistics on tourism, as regards the structure of the quality reports and the transmission of the data. Agenda for a ...

  5. EU tourism: an almost full recovery to pre-pandemic levels

    The EU Tourism Dashboard is a valuable source of knowledge for policy makers in EU countries and regions to better understand how tourism is progressing towards the green and digital transition, and to assess local socio-economic resilience. ... The dashboard is developed in cooperation with Eurostat and in coordination with the EU Member States.

  6. New tourism dashboard to help public authorities and tourism

    The EU Tourism Dashboard was developed with the support of the Commission's Joint Research Centre, which will be responsible for the maintenance and continuous development of the tool. The Dashboard responds to a call for such a tool by EU countries in May 2021 and will be further developed and expanded in collaboration with EU countries ...

  7. The EU Tourism Dashboard

    Policy context. May 2021 - Council conclusions on Tourism in Europe for the next decade. The European Council invited. the end of 2021". February 2022 - Transition Pathway for Tourism. Implement and use "the EU Tourism Dashboard to support. follow-up of environmental, digital and socio-economic aspects of tourism", with annual updates ...

  8. High-value datasets

    Tourism data from Eurostat. The EU's official statistical office, Eurostat, offers a large number of datasets to study tourism, along with a detailed page in the 'Statistics Explained' section that shows major trends. One way to look at tourism is to analyse where people tend to come from and where they go.

  9. A tourism dashboard for greener, digitally savvy and resilient EU

    The Commission launches today the EU Tourism Dashboard, a new tool to help policy makers at country and regional level to steer policies and strategies in the tourism ecosystem.The aim of this tool is to improve access to statistics and policy-relevant indicators for tourism, supporting destinations and public authorities in tracking their progress in the green and digital transition.

  10. The Impact of COVID-19 on the International Tourism Industry

    Figure 2: European overview of percentage of population employed in tourism-related sectors, source: Eurostat Tourism decrease caused by COVID-19. Travel bans make tourism one of the industries that is hit the hardest by the COVID-19 crisis. In Europe, several countries already show that the number of nights spent in tourist accommodation was halved in March 2020 compared to previous years.

  11. Information on data

    Countries submit this data to Eurostat within 6 months after the end of the reference year. Usually, in the 4th quarter of the year following the reference year, Eurostat then releases annual data on tourism demand and more detailed annual data on tourist accommodation. For example, data for 2021 were released in the 4th quarter of 2022.

  12. EU tourist stays neared pre-pandemic levels in 2022

    The 27-nation bloc recorded 2.72 billion nights spent in tourist accommodation last year, down by only 5.6% from 2019 levels, before COVID-19 inflicted heavy losses on the tourism industry due to ...

  13. Commission (Eurostat) publishes first statistics on short-stay

    Commission (Eurostat) publishes first statistics on short-stay accommodation booked via collaborative economy platforms ... Like other European industries, the future of tourism will hinge on our collective ability to transition to a greener, more digital and resilient future. By 2030, Europe should be a top quality destination known globally ...

  14. Data sharing and innovation for a sustainable EU tourism ecosystem

    In the past years, different tools and mechanisms have been used to collect data in the tourism sector. Eurostat had agreed to share sharing accommodation data with the private sector and on 2021, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) developed the EU Tourism Dashboard tool to monitor the green and digital transitions and resilience of the tourism ecosyste

  15. The UN Tourism Data Dashboard

    The UN Tourism Data Dashboard - provides statistics and insights on key indicators for inbound and outbound tourism at the global, regional and national levels. Data covers tourist arrivals, tourism share of exports and contribution to GDP, source markets, seasonality and accommodation (data on number of rooms, guest and nights) ...

  16. Pandemic crisis and economic trends: the tourism sector in European and

    This publication presents empirical data from Eurostat's database with a focus on some figures from the tourism sector for the EU 27 complemented by additional figures from EFTA Member States. ... from a compensation effect in 2020 and 2021 with domestic tourism compensating at least partially for losses of foreign tourism in terms of total ...

  17. EU tourism nights mark 6.1% yearly increase in 2023

    In 2023, the number of nights spent in EU tourist accommodation reached 2.9 billion. This represents a 6.1% increase compared with 2022 and a 1.4% increase compared with the pre-pandemic 2019. This information comes from monthly data on tourist accommodation up to December 2023 published by Eurostat today. This article presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained ...

  18. Eurostat statistics on Tourism

    Nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments - monthly data ( tour_occ_nim) Data and maps. Datasets. External datasets catalogue. Eurostat statistics on Tourism.

  19. Tourism: €572 billion gross value added in the EU

    In 2019, the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic heavily hit the tourism sector, the gross value added directly generated by tourism amounted to an estimated €572 billion, or 5% of the total gross value added in the EU economy. Among the countries for which data are available, the highest shares of tourism in total gross value added were observed in Croatia (11%), Portugal (8%), Spain (7% ...

  20. Eurostat: Tourism participation in EU

    If you are looking for some more dashboard tips check the dashboard design guidelines. Learn these 10 design principles to take your dashboards to the next level. Dashboard Design Guidelines not ...

  21. EU tourism recovering in 2021

    In 2021, the number of nights spent at EU tourist accommodation establishments totalled 1.8 billion, up by 27% compared with 2020, but down by 37% compared with 2019. This information comes from early estimates on tourism published by Eurostat today. The article presents only a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained ...

  22. European Statistical Recovery Dashboard

    The European Statistical Recovery Dashboard provides a comprehensive and interactive overview of the economic and social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the EU. It covers various domains, such as GDP, employment, health, environment and social inclusion, and compares the current situation with the pre-crisis levels. The dashboard also links to the latest Eurostat news and publications on ...

  23. GDP stable and employment up by 0.3% in the euro area

    GDP growth in the euro area and the EU In the fourth quarter of 2023, seasonally adjusted GDP remained stable in both the euro area and the EU, compared with the previous quarter, according to an estimate published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. In the third quarter of 2023, GDP had decreased by 0.1% in the euro area and had remained stable in the EU. Compared with ...

  24. Euro area annual inflation down to 2.6%

    Overview Euro area annual inflation is expected to be 2.6% in February 2024, down from 2.8% in January according to a flash estimate from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. Looking at the main components of euro area inflation, food, alcohol & tobacco is expected to have the highest annual rate in February (4.0%, compared with 5.6% in January), followed by services (3.9% ...