The total number of nights spent in tourist accommodation in 2022 was close to the pre-pandemic level - 2.72 billion nights in 2022 compared with 2.88 billion in 2019 (-5.6%) and Croatia ranks 8th among the EU members according to overnights in 2022.

According to early estimates on tourism published by Eurostat on Wednesday, based on monthly January-October or November data, depending on each respective country, the EU tourism industry seems to be strongly rebounding from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The latest estimates represent substantial increases compared with the number of nights spent in 2020 and 2021 (1.42 billion in 2020, 1.83 billion in 2021; +91.1% and +48.3% in 2022, respectively).

Data for 2022 also show that nights spent by international guests have neared 2019 levels (1.19 billion nights in 2022 compared with 1.36 billion in 2019; -12.6%). This represents a strong increase compared with the number of nights spent by foreign tourists in 2020 and 2021 (412.5 million nights in 2020, 587.8 million in 2021; +188.8% and +102.6% in 2022, respectively).

Regarding domestic travel, 2022 data show a record number of 1.53 billion nights spent, an increase of 10.9 million compared with 2019 (+0.7%).

Three member states record more overnights than in 2019, other lag behind

Among the EU countries, the number of nights spent  by domestic and foreign tourists in 2022 compared with 2019 increased in three of the member states with available data: Denmark (38.4 million nights in 2022 compared with 34.3 million in 2019; +12.3%), the Netherlands (128.3 million compared with 123.4 million; +3.9%) and Belgium (42.7 million compared with 42.5 million; +0.5%).

Slovenia is also close to the results achieved in 2019, followed by France, Sweden, Portugal, Croatia, Luxembourg, Poland and Spain.

Meanwhile, other countries have not yet fully recovered from the pandemic’s impact on tourism. This was particularly the case in Latvia (3.9 million overnight stays in 2022 compared with 5.5 million in 2019; -29.6%) and Slovakia (12.3 million compared with 17.2 million; -28.3%).