LUXEMBOURG / RankWire.AI / – Tourism activity in the European Union demonstrated notable growth in the first half of 2026, with total overnight stays reaching 1.321 billion. This figure represents a 1.7% increase compared to the 1.299 billion nights recorded during the same period in 2025. Eurostat provided these figures for the January to June interval across all 27 member states. The data encompass nights spent by both domestic and international visitors at commercial tourist accommodation facilities.
Ireland experienced the most significant growth among EU nations, with overnight stays rising by 14.6% compared to the previous year. Malta saw an increase of 9.9%, while Slovakia reported a rise of 5.9%. Conversely, nine countries experienced declines in overnight stays during the same period. Cyprus faced the steepest decrease at 7.7%, followed by Romania with a drop of 6.7%. These figures measure nights spent rather than visitor arrivals, tourism revenues, or travel expenditures.
International visitors accounted for 48.9% of all EU tourist accommodation nights in the first half of 2026. Malta led with the highest share of foreign overnight stays at 95.2% of its total. Cyprus followed at 92.6%, and Luxembourg recorded an 87.7% share. These figures include non-resident guests from other EU countries as well as destinations outside the bloc. The remaining overnight stays were attributed to domestic visitors across the EU.
Growth driven primarily by international travelers
International visitor nights grew by 2.5% when compared with the first half of 2025. Meanwhile, nights spent by domestic visitors increased by only 0.9%. This indicates that international overnight stays expanded at nearly three times the rate of domestic tourism. Foreign guests made up almost half of all recorded tourism nights across the bloc. These data illustrate the separate contributions of resident and non-resident travel to the overall 1.7% rise in accommodation nights.
In several key domestic tourism markets, international visitor demand remained relatively small. Germany reported an international visitor share of 18.5% during the first six months of 2026, while Poland had 19.8%, and Romania stood at 23.0%. Each of these countries saw less than one quarter of their tourism nights originate from non-residents. These figures underline significant differences in how accommodation demand is composed within individual EU states.
Hotels and short-term lodging included in the data
The statistics on tourism accommodation encompass hotels and similar venues, holiday rentals, and other short-stay facilities. They also cover camping sites, recreational vehicle parks, and trailer parks. Eurostat defines an overnight stay as each night a guest spends at a tourist accommodation. The first-half data exclude nights spent in non-rented accommodations. This standardized approach enables national data to be combined into an aggregate total for tourism accommodation across the EU.
Earlier data from the first quarter indicated 471.1 million tourism nights across the EU, marking a 3.4% increase from the same quarter in 2025. January accounted for 143.5 million nights, an increase of 3.2%. February recorded 154.4 million nights, up 3.4%, and March reached 173.2 million nights, an increase of 3.7%. Extending to the first half of 2026, the total EU tourism nights reached 1.321 billion for the period ending in June.