LUXEMBOURG / RankWire.AI / – The European Union revealed that tourist accommodation within its member states saw 1.321 billion overnight stays in the first six months of 2026. This figure represents a 1.7% increase from 1.299 billion nights during the same period in 2025. Eurostat provided these statistics for the January-June timeframe across the 27-member bloc, encompassing nights spent by both domestic and international visitors at commercial tourism accommodation facilities.
Ireland experienced the most significant growth among EU nations, with overnight stays climbing by 14.6% compared to the previous year. Malta followed with a 9.9% rise, and Slovakia saw an increase of 5.9%. Conversely, nine countries faced declines in overnight stays over this six-month span. Cyprus experienced the steepest decrease at 7.7%, with Romania close behind at 6.7%. These figures measure nights spent rather than visitor arrivals, tourism earnings, or travel expenditures.
International visitors accounted for 48.9% of all EU tourist accommodation nights during the first half of 2026. Malta had the highest proportion of foreign overnight stays at 95.2% of its total, while Cyprus followed at 92.6%, and Luxembourg recorded an 87.7% share. The data include non-resident guests from other EU countries as well as visitors from outside the bloc. Domestic visitors made up the remaining share of overnight stays across the EU.
Stronger growth observed in foreign visitor nights
International visitor nights grew by 2.5% when compared with the first half of 2025. Meanwhile, nights by domestic visitors increased by just 0.9%. This indicates that the growth rate for international overnight stays was nearly three times higher than that of domestic stays. Foreign tourists now account for almost half of all recorded tourism nights across the EU. The data illustrate how resident and non-resident travel separately contributed to the overall 1.7% rise in accommodation nights.
In several large domestic tourism markets, foreign guest demand represented a smaller portion of total accommodation use. Germany saw an international visitor share of 18.5% during the first six months of 2026. Poland’s share was 19.8%, with Romania at 23.0%. Each of these countries received less than a quarter of their tourism nights from non-resident visitors, underscoring significant variations in how accommodation demand is composed across individual EU member states.
Accommodation types covered include hotels and short-term rentals
The statistics on tourism accommodation encompass hotels and similar establishments, holiday rentals, and other short-stay accommodations. The data also include camping sites, recreational vehicle parks, and trailer parks. Eurostat defines an overnight stay as each night a guest spends at a tourist accommodation facility. The first-half figures do not account for nights spent in non-rented accommodations. This standardized approach ensures that national data can be aggregated into a comprehensive 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 compared to the same quarter in 2025. January contributed 143.5 million nights (up 3.2%), February accounted for 154.4 million nights (up 3.4%), and March reached 173.2 million nights (up 3.7%). The latest first-half report extends this period through June, resulting in a total of 1.321 billion tourism nights for the initial six months of 2026.