Tourism trips recover strongly, business travel struggles

In 2022, EU residents made 1.08 billion tourism trips with at least one overnight stay, indicating a +23% (+202 million) increase compared with 2021, the same percentage raise also registered between 2020 and 2021. 

Out of the total, most of the trips in 2022 (976 million, representing 91% of the total) were made for personal reasons and the remaining 100 million were professional trips. Both sectors grew from the previous year: +43% in business trips (+30 million) and +21% on trips for personal reasons (+171 million). However, compared with 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic, the recovery was faster for personal trips (-4%) than for business travel (-20%). 

Compared with 2013, trips for personal reasons went up by 6% (+55 million), while trips for professional reasons decreased by 15% (-18 million). 

Source dataset: tour_dem_tttot

EU residents spent an average of €87 per night on overnight stays

In terms of expenditure, EU residents spent an average of €87 per night with at least one overnight stay in 2022, marking a 30% increase compared with 2021, when they spent an average of €67. The 2022 value is also 4% higher than in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic (average of €84 per night) and 31% higher than in 2013 (€66). 

In 2022, per night, tourists from Luxembourg spent the most (€175), followed by Austrian tourists (€154) and Estonian tourists (€128), while less than €50 per night was spent by residents of Poland (€44), Greece (€45) and Czechia (€46).