The number of bed places in tourist establishments across the European Union decreased slightly in 2021 compared to 2019, but remained stable compared to 2020, according to data published by Eurostat, the statistical service of the EU.

In 2021, the EU had an estimated total of 28.1 million bed places available across 597 000 tourist establishments. Italy and France accounted for slightly more than one third of the total available capacity, with 5.1 million bed places each.

These Member States were followed by Spain (3.8 million bed places, representing 13% of the total) and Germany (3.5 million; 12%).

Compared with 2020, the year the COVID-19 pandemic started, the number of bed places and the number of establishments remained stable. However, compared with 2019, the number of bed places in 2021 was still 2% lower (28.8 million) and the number of establishments was even lower (3% lower; total of 617 953 establishments).

The number of bed places in Cyprus in 2021 (90,854) was stable compared to 2020 (90,900) and very slightly increased compared with 2019 (90,188), when it had increased compared with 2018 (87,240). In 2019, the number of beds in the EU had increased from 28.2 million beds in 2018 to 28.8 million.

Meanwhile, data for 2021 on nights spent by international guests in EU tourist accommodation show that 75.1% of the 591 million nights spent by international guests in EU tourist accommodation were by tourists coming from other EU Member States, while 16% were spent by tourists coming from other European countries (of which nearly half were UK residents).

Compared with 2019, there were changes in the market segmentation most likely due to travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In particular, there was a substantial increase of 15 percentage points (pp) in the number of nights spent by tourists from the other EU Member States and an 8 pp decrease in nights spent by tourists from other European countries.

Additionally, in 2021 only 8% of nights spent by international guests were spent by tourists from other regions, compared with 16% in 2019.

In 2021, tourists from North America represented 3.5% of the total nights spent by international guests in EU tourist accommodations, while guests from Asia represented 2.4%, Central and South America 1.2%, Africa 0.7% and Oceania 0.2%.