As Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve approach, we often reflect on the most significant events of the passing year. Travel, whether a weekend getaway or an extended journey abroad, undoubtedly brings immense joy and lasting memories. It's a wonderful tradition to reminisce about our travel adventures of the past year and to plan exciting new escapades for the year ahead.

Such indicator as "Nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments" (overnight stays) reveals that Europeans like to travel within their own country (1.27 billion overnight stays in the first 9 months of 2024). Also, more then 1.19 billion overnight stays (the first 9 months of 2024) are visits from European countries and other countries from all over the world. Number of overnight stays spent by foreign tourists (including tourists from other EU countries) increased by (+1.8 p.p.) compared with the same period in 2023, and (+5.7 p.p.) compared with the same period in 2019.

Countries leading in attractiveness for foreign tourists

The leading countries in terms of foreign tourist overnight stays remain unchanged in 2024 (compared to 2023) and collectively account for approximately 86.9% of all foreign tourist overnight stays within the European Union.

Spain and Italy are the absolute leaders among EU countries in terms of the number of overnight stays by foreign tourists: 21.4% and 17.4% of the total number of overnight stays, respectively. In general, the preferences of foreigners are quite stable in 2024 compared to 2023, since the positions of EU in the TOP list did not change. Compared to 2019, share of Spain grew by (+5.4 pp), Italy by (+2.6%).

Interestingly Turkey, is also one of the leaders in number of foreign tourists (93.3 million overnight stays in the first 9 months of 2024, which is approximately 7.6% of the total number of total overnight stays in EU countries).

The most hospitable countries

If we assess the number of overnight stays of foreign tourists spent in the host country relative to the number of residents of this country, the TOP 10 will change significantly. In our opinion, this list can be called «TOP 10 most hospitable countries» or «Countries with a high dependence of the economy on tourism».

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Croatia leads among EU countries with the highest ratio of overnight stays by foreign tourists to the number of residents (20.8%). Interestingly, Malta, Cyprus and Greece follow with approximately equal values: 12.6%, 12.5% and 10.8% respectively.

Non EU countries also demonstrate a high ratio of overnight stays by foreign tourists to the number of residents: Iceland stands out with a ratio of 15.5%, while Montenegro and Liechtenstein demonstrate significant tourism dependence with 6.6% and 4.3%, respectively.

Furthermore, domestic tourism plays also a crucial role in supporting both the tourism industry and the overall economy. The population of these countries, on average, travels more often than residents of other EU countries within their own country for business and tourism purposes.

France, the Netherlands, and Sweden lead the ranking for domestic tourist overnight stays per resident with respective ratios of 4%, 3.8%, and 3.7%. Notably, none of these countries appear among the TOP 10 by the ratio of overnight stays by foreign tourists to the number of residents.

It is also important to highlight three other countries in the broader European region whose residents travel within their own country more often than the average EU countries resident- Iceland 4.1% of residents, Norway 3.8% and Switzerland 3.0%.

Dynamics of foreign tourists' preferences by country

Analysis of foreign tourist overnight stays (2024 compared to 2023) reveals that top 10 counties  strengthened their position. While the EU average increase in foreign tourist overnight stays was 1.8 percentage points, the top 10 countries experiencing the most significant growth in this indicator demonstrated substantially higher rates.

In TOP 10 EU countries by growth in overnight stays of foreign tourists (9 months 2024 to 9 months 2023), Luxembourg takes a lead by a wide margin +28.0 pp, followed by Denmark +12.9 pp, Malta +12.3 pp and Romania +10.6 pp.

It is interesting to highlight the relatively good results of Norway, as a country belonging to the wider European region (+15.5 p.p.) overnight stays of foreign tourists (in terms of growth in interest from foreign tourists in 2024 compared to 2023).

TOP 10 EU countries showed medium increase by (5.7 p.p.) compared to 2019,  then these countries significantly exceeded the EU average and significantly exceeded their own indicator for the number of overnight stays by foreign tourists in 2019.

TOP 10 countries in terms of visits of foreign tourists (2024 compared to 2019) includes Denmark +38.2 p.p., Luxembourg +28.5 p.p., Ireland +25.2 p.p. and the Netherlands +23.5 p.p.

Among Eastern Partnership and Enlargement Agenda, the most positive dynamics can be highlighted in Kosovo +249.9 p.p., Serbia +34.2 p.p., Norway +31.1 p.p., Liechtenstein +20.1 p.p. and Iceland +10.1 p.p.

In general, based on the analysis of statistics, many tourists, despite their commitment to traveling to certain countries, constantly discover new routes for themselves, which means they receive new positive emotions and enrich their cultural experience. The trend of redistributing tourist flow to countries that are not TOP European leaders in terms of the number of overnight stays by foreign tourists will continue in 2025.

We wish all our friends, partners and subscribers to continue new discoveries, visit new countries and make new friends in 2025!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!