The lockdowns and travel restrictions imposed during the pandemic dealt a heavy blow to the tourism industry in Europe. Almost three years after the health crisis first hit, the sector finally seems to be rebounding, especially in Belgium.
In 2020, the number of nights spent in tourist accommodation slumped to 1.42 billion, half of the levels recorded during 2019, when some 2.88 billion such stays were booked. While a slight recovery was measured in 2021 (1.83 billion), the figures seen last year (2.72 billion nights) were once again nearing pre-pandemic levels Eurostat figures revealed.
Despite this substantial increase, the number of overnight stays was still -5.6% lower in 2022 compared to 2019 across the EU. This is in line with predictions made by the European Travel Commission in November 2021, which stated that travel activity was not expected to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2024.
However, in three EU Member States, the number of nights booked by domestic and foreign tourists actually increased last year compared with 2019, including in Belgium.
Here, 42.7 million overnight stays were booked in 2022, compared with 42.5 million in 2019; a meagre increase of 0.5%, but a rise nonetheless.
In Belgium, the coast was the strongest driving force for the recovery. While domestic tourists largely kept the tourism sector afloat during the pandemic, foreign tourists were finding their way to the Flemish coast again from June, while hotels in the capital were almost back to pre-pandemic occupancy levels in August as international tourists flocked back.
The tourism sector's rebound was strongest in Denmark, where 38.4 million overnight stays were booked, up by 12.3%, followed by the Netherlands (128.3 million compared with 123.4 million).
Across the EU, monthly tourism figures increased continuously in the course of last year, but some countries have not yet fully recovered from the pandemic’s impact on tourism.
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The rebound remained particularly slow in Latvia (3.9 million overnight stays in 2022, one-third of the figures recorded in 2019) and in Slovakia, where 12.3 million stays were booked compared with 17.2 million in 2019).
Domestic travel increased by 0.7% across the EU, with a record number of 1.53 billion overnight stays booked by people in their own country, an increase of 10.9 million compared with 2019, reflecting the impact the pandemic had on people's travelling habits.
