Record number of tourists flood EU in 2024
According to figures released on Friday, the number of tourists visiting EU member states hit a record high of 2.99 billion last year
According to a report by academics, “longer term evolution shows that tourism levels in 2024 were around 50% above those of 15 years ago (from 2 billion nights spent in 2009 to 3 billion in 2024), and 4% above the 2019 pre-pandemic level.”
As tourism mostly stopped in 2020, total tourist visits fell below 1.5 billion.
However, EU visits swiftly recovered once it was safe to travel again, with 2022’s pace falling just short of 2019’s 2.88 billion and 2024 seeing a 2% increase over 2023. Compared to 2023, 53.4 million more individuals visited the EU last year.
Since at least 2009, when Eurostat began publishing the data, domestic tourists have continued to outnumber foreign visitors. With 58.7 million more individuals visiting abroad last year than in 2023, the number of foreign visitors continued to rise. 5.2 million fewer persons choose to travel domestically in 2024, a little decrease from the previous year.
Nearly two-thirds of the 3 billion nights that tourists spent in the EU last year were spent in hotels, with firms reporting 1.9 billion nights booked in 2024. Nearly 4 million people camped, while an estimated 711 million remained in temporary housing.
In France, where 51% of tourists opted to sleep outside during the third quarter of last year, camping is the most popular activity in the EU. Similar to an increasing number of Spanish tourists, a greater proportion of visitors to Luxembourg and Denmark also opted to camp.
Luxembourg recorded the most rise in tourists last year
Malta and Latvia were in second and third, respectively. With 1% fewer tourists last year, France and Belgium.
Tourism is a significant industry that supports economic expansion, job creation, and advancement of rural, underdeveloped, or peripheral areas. According to researchers, tourism contributes 4.5% of the EU’s gross value added.
Economists use inflation in addition to tourism to gauge the health of the EU economy.
Even though the EU’s inflation rate decreased from 3.4% in 2023 to 2.7% in December 2024, year.
Compiled by,
World Travel News, Gorilla Trekking Uganda and Gorilla Trekking Rwanda
