Last year in Cyprus, 18 million nights were spent at tourist accommodation establishments, 16.9 million of them by non-residents (94%), a 4.7% increase compared to 2018.

Almost every EU Member State recorded an increase in the number of tourism nights spent by residents, with the highest increases recorded in Slovakia (+15.1%), Cyprus (+13%), Croatia (+10%), Lithuania (+9.9%) and Malta (+9.2%).

The largest shares of nights spent by residents were recorded in Romania (83% of total nights spent), Germany and Poland (both 80%) as well as Sweden (75%).

In contrast, the largest shares of nights spent by non-residents were registered in Malta (95% of total nights spent), Cyprus (94%), Croatia (92%) and Luxembourg (88%).

In 2019, the number of nights spent in tourist accommodation in the EU is expected to have reached more than 3.2 billion, up by 2.4% compared with 2018, according to Eurostat.

Since 2009, there has been a steady increase in the number of nights spent in tourist accommodation establishments in the EU, notably driven by a rise in nights spent by non-residents.

Spain (469 million nights, +0.5% compared with 2018) retained its lead, ahead of France (446 mln, +0.8%), Germany (436 mln, +4.0%), Italy (433 mln, +0.9%) and the UK (375 mln, +5.7%).

In Greece, 119.4 million nights were spent at tourist accommodation establishments, 99.6 million of them by non-resident (83%), a -3.0% decrease from 2018.

The number of nights spent in tourist accommodation in 2019 grew in nearly all Member States, with the largest increases being observed in Slovakia (+12.6%) and Lithuania (+10%), followed by the Netherlands (+6.8%), the UK (+5.7%) and Romania (+5.6%).

In contrast, the only decreases were registered in Greece (-3.0%) and Malta (-2.7%).

In the EU, the number of nights spent in tourist accommodation by residents grew at the same pace (+2.4%) between 2018 and 2019 as those spent by non-residents (+2.4%).

Similarly, the number of tourism nights spent by non-residents rose in a majority of EU Member States, with the largest increases registered in the UK (+19.2%), the Netherlands (+10.6%), Lithuania (+10.0%) and Slovakia (+8.4%).

Source: Financial Mirror