Top tourism destinations in the EU

Europeans seem to prefer travelling on the continent most of all. The latest data from Eurostat show that nearly 90% of the tourism nights in the European Union in the are spent by EU residents.

When travelling, Europeans spend almost 85% of the nights within EU countries, will only 15% in the extra destinations. On average, they spend EUR 85 per night when travelling. The lowest spending of EUR 46 was registered in Slovakia, while the highest of EUR 129 was in Estonia.

Spain, France and Italy top tourism destinations in the EU

This means, that tourists from outside the EU account for only around 10% of the total. When choosing their destinations, most Europeans prefer several regions of Spain, Italy and France with the three countries topping their travelling list.

When travelling outside the European Union, most EU residents choose the United States and Turkey, in terms of nights spent in the respective countries. The top three destinations for Europeans travelling outside of Europe were Turkey (13%), the United States (13%) and Switzerland (10%).

Europe’s Statistics Office show that The Canary Islands, Île-de-France and Cataluña are the most popular tourist EU regions. For the second year, the Spanish islands remain the most popular tourist region in the EU, with 94 million overnight stays registered in 2015. Spain has other three regions featured in the top ten destinations: Cataluña (75.5 million nights), the Illes Balears (65.2 million nights) and Andalucía (61.4 million nights).

France, another of the top preferred destinations for the Europeans has three regions in the top 10: the capital region of Île-de-France (ranked second with 76.8 million nights), ProvenceAlpes-Côte d’Azur (54.6 million nights) and Rhône-Alpes (48.7 million nights).

The Croatian region of Jadranska Hrvatska (68.1 million nights), the Italian region of Veneto (63.3 million nights) and Inner London in the United Kingdom (44.8 million nights in 2012) featured also among the main EU regional tourism destinations.

Italy is another country that has many regions preferred by EU residents next to France and Spain. Each county has six regions in the top 30 destinations ( Veneto, Toscana, Lombardia, Emilia-Romagna, Lazio and Provincia autonoma di Bolzano/Bozen).

In addition, four of the top 30 EU tourist regions were in Germany (Oberbayern, Berlin, MecklenburgVorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein), two each in Greece (Notio Aigaio and Kriti) and Austria (Tirol and Salzburg), and one each in Ireland (Southern and Eastern), Croatia (Jadranska Hrvatska), the Netherlands (Noord-Holland) and the United Kingdom (Inner London).’

Turkey and the United States remain the preferred destinations outside the EU

Financial reasons appear to be the main cause for not travelling and four out of ten Europeans did not take any trip in 2015.

When travelling outside the European Union, most EU residents choose the United States and Turkey, in terms of nights spent in the respective countries. The top three destinations for Europeans travelling outside of Europe were Turkey (13%), the United States (13%) and Switzerland (10%).

British and Estonian citizens are the one travelling the most outside of the European Union. In 2015, more than 1 out of every 4 tourism nights was spent outside the EU by residents of the United Kingdom (28.4% in 2013) and Estonia (27.9%). They were followed by those of Belgium (23.1%), Croatia (20.5%), Lithuania and Austria (both 20.3%) as well as Luxembourg (20.2%). In contrast, less than 1 out of every 10 tourism nights was spent outside the EU by residents of Romania (1.0%), Greece (5.6%), the Czech Republic (6.2%), Portugal (7.0%), France (7.1%), Bulgaria (7.7%), Spain (8.0%), Poland (8.1%) and Slovakia (9.7%).

The US and Turkey account together for a quarter of extra-EU tourism nights At EU level, the United States remained the main destination of EU tourists travelling outside the EU in 2015,

The United States was the top extra-EU destination for residents of Ireland, France, Luxembourg, Hungary, Poland, Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The second most common extra-EU destination for EU residents was Turkey (10.4% of all tourism nights spent outside the EU), the top destination for residents of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Romania.

Morocco (4.6%) completed the top 3 extra-EU destinations of EU tourists in 2015. It was the top destination for residents of Belgium and Spain.