In the EU, more ‘online’ overnight stays than in 2019: Adriatic ranks second among coastal regions

In short-term rental accommodation in the summer of 2022 in the EU, there were 251 million overnight stays booked through online platforms, which is 24 percent more than in the summer of 2021 and 9 percent more than in 2019, with the Adriatic Croatia ranking second among coastal regions as popular destinations since spring, Eurostat reported.

These are data on total overnight stays in the EU in the third quarter of 2022 in short-term accommodation booked through online platforms and regional data for the second quarter, which Eurostat publishes based on an agreement from March 2020 between the European Commission and four global online accommodation booking platforms – Airbnb, Booking, Expedia Group, and TripAdvisor.

Adriatic Croatia second, behind Andalusia

Coastal regions remained among the most popular destinations, and according to data for the second quarter of 2022 (April-June), only five in the EU had more than 4 million overnight stays booked on online platforms.

Adriatic Croatia was among those five coastal regions in the EU, ranking second with 5.5 million overnight stays, while first place went to Andalusia in Spain with 6.5 million overnight stays in the second quarter of 2022.

The third region is Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur in France, where 5.2 million ‘online’ overnight stays were recorded in the second quarter of 2022, and more than 4 million overnight stays were also in the Spanish Catalonia and the French region Île de France.

Eurostat does not provide comparisons from those regions with previous years, but notes that in the top 20 regions, France and Spain each had six regions with a large number of online booking overnight stays, Italy had five, Portugal two, and Croatia one.

The first half and third quarter of 2022 stronger than 2019

In the third quarter, which includes the ‘traditional’ months of summer holidays July and August, in short-term rental accommodation, known in Croatia as private accommodation, tourists achieved significantly more overnight stays than in the same quarter of 2021, as well as 9 percent more overnight stays than in 2019 or the aforementioned 251 million.

Commenting on the second half of 2022, Eurostat notes that reservations then first exceeded pre-pandemic levels, following a gradual recovery in the second half of 2021.

Thus, in the first six months of 2022, 199.4 million overnight stays were booked online, which is about 3 percent more, while in the same months of 2021, it was still half as much, around 84 million, as travel restrictions due to COVID-19 were still in place at that time.

All 31 countries of the EU and EFTA monitored by Eurostat showed a strong recovery in tourist overnight stays in 2022 compared to 2021, but there were differences compared to 2019.

Overnight stays in Belgium, Sweden, and France compared to that year in the third quarter of 2022 increased by about 30 percent, but another 12 EU member states lag behind the levels from 2019, with Portugal having the most significant decline of 4 percent, as noted by Eurostat.