Total Tourism Activity in 2025

In 2025, European tourism continued to move forward — not with the exuberance of the immediate rebound years, but with a steadier and more revealing rhythm. According to Eurostat, the number of nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments in the EU rose again compared with 2024, confirming that demand for travel remained resilient even as growth began to level out. In the first half of the year alone, travellers spent around 1.28 billion nights across the EU, an increase of 2.3% year on year. This performance builds on the exceptionally strong results of 2024, when total nights spent in EU tourist accommodation surpassed 3 billion, exceeding pre-pandemic levels for the first time.

Who Travelled in 2025?

The composition of demand in 2025 tells an equally important story. Eurostat data shows that domestic and international travel both played a strong role, with non-resident guests accounting for close to half of all nights spent in EU tourist accommodation in the first half of the year. This balance matters. A solid domestic market provides a degree of stability at times of external uncertainty, while continued international travel reflects Europe’s enduring appeal as a destination. 

How Tourism Performed Over the Year: Timing and Seasonality

A closer look at 2025 shows that when people travelled mattered almost as much as how much they travelled. Tourism activity followed a familiar seasonal pattern, with a slower start to the year giving way to a strong summer-driven performance.

The year opened cautiously. In the first quarter of 2025, nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments fell slightly compared with the same period in 2024, largely due to calendar effects. Easter fell in April rather than March, shifting a significant share of travel into the second quarter. The data points to delayed trips rather than weaker demand.

Momentum picked up decisively in the spring. The second quarter marked a return to growth, as Easter travel combined with improving weather and the start of the high season. By early summer, tourism activity had clearly accelerated. Between July and September 2025, guests spent significantly more nights in EU tourist accommodation than a year earlier, confirming the central role of the summer months in driving annual performance.

The picture for the final months of the year is not yet fully complete. A full assessment of fourth-quarter performance will only be possible once consolidated data is published in 2026. What is already evident, however, is that seasonality remains a defining feature of European tourism.

Uneven Performance Across the EU: National and Regional Results

At first glance, the EU’s tourism figures for 2025 suggest steady progress. Look closer, however, and a far more uneven picture emerges. Behind the aggregate growth lie sharp contrasts between countries gaining momentum and others struggling to keep pace. In tourism, geography still matters.

Countries with Noticeable Growth

In the first half of 2025, a handful of Member States stood out for their strong performance. Malta, Latvia and Poland recorded some of the largest increases in overnight stays compared with the same period last year, well above the EU average growth rate of 2.3%. In Malta and Latvia, tourism buoyancy came from both foreign visitors and return demand, while in Poland the rise was bolstered more by domestic travellers who continued to explore their own country.

Across much of southern Europe, popular destinations also enjoyed robust summer months. According to recent Eurostat figures on short-stay accommodation, regions such as Andalucía (Spain), Jadranska Hrvatska (Croatia) and Île-de-France (France) were among the top performers for nights booked via online platforms in the second quarter of 2025 — suggesting that holiday hotspots remained magnets for travellers.

Markets with Slower Growth

Not every market saw such momentum. In contrast, Germany, Sweden and Belgium reported much more modest increases, and Ireland even experienced a decrease in overnight stays during the first half of the year. In larger tourism markets with a greater reliance on domestic travellers, this more subdued performance reflects both softer demand at home and a less pronounced summer surge compared with smaller or highly tourism-oriented countries.

Where Tourists Stayed in 2025: Accommodation Performance

Where visitors chose to stay in 2025 tells an important — and rather lively — story about how European tourism is functioning today. Traditional accommodation continued to carry the bulk of demand, but short-stay rentals booked via online platforms added flexibility and extra capacity, especially when travel volumes peaked.

Traditional Accommodation Establishments

Hotels and similar accommodation remained the backbone of tourism activity across the EU. Data shows that they accounted for the majority of nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments in 2025, particularly during peak travel periods

Their performance followed a familiar seasonal pattern. Occupancy rose steadily from spring and peaked in summer, highlighting the continued importance of hotels in accommodating large visitor flows. In cities and established holiday destinations alike, hotels offered scale, reliability and year-round availability — qualities that proved essential during the high season.

Short-Stay Accommodation via Online Platforms

Alongside hotels, short-stay accommodation offered through online platforms continued to gain ground in 2025. Eurostat figures show a strong increase in nights booked via collaborative economy platforms, particularly during the second and third quarters of the year. This growth was most visible in urban centres and coastal regions, where short-stay rentals helped absorb peak-season demand. In popular destinations, they played a valuable supporting role, expanding accommodation options and easing pressure during the busiest months. In performance terms, this combination helped European destinations respond effectively to strong summer demand in 2025 — and offered travellers a wider choice of places to stay than ever before.

Interpreting the Results

What do the 2025 figures really tell us? Above all, they point to a tourism sector that continued to attract travellers. Demand remained solid, especially when it mattered most, yet growth was shaped as much by practical constraints as by appetite for travel. Despite ongoing efforts to encourage travel outside the summer months, July, August and early September continued to set the tone for annual results.

Demand remains strong, but growth is no longer automatic. Without changes that allow tourism activity to spread more evenly over time and space, expansion is likely to remain gradual. A deeper exploration of the broader forces shaping tourism in 2025 — from sustainability and digitalisation to skills and competitiveness — is available in the article Tourism in 2025: Key Trends, Developments and EU Policy Highlights. 

Looking ahead, the figures suggest that performance will increasingly be shaped by how effectively destinations respond to demand, rather than by demand alone. Timing, capacity and local conditions are becoming as important as visitor numbers.

A Year of Solid but Uneven Performance

Taken as a whole, 2025 underlines the enduring strength of European tourism. Activity continued to expand, the peak season delivered once again, and destinations across the EU showed that tourism can perform confidently under more settled conditions. As in previous years, the summer months provided the decisive push, setting the pace and shaping overall results.

At the same time, the data paints a picture of diversity rather than uniformity. Some destinations moved ahead at speed, others advanced more gradually, reflecting the many different tourism models at work across Europe. Together, these contrasts highlight a sector that is dynamic, resilient and far from one-size-fits-all — a hallmark of European tourism’s continued vitality.