In 2018, the number of nights spent in tourist accommodation establishments in the European Union (EU) is expected to have reached more than 3.1 billion, up by 2.2% compared with 2017. According to Eurostat, in Cyprus 17.4 thousand nights were spend in tourist accommodation establishments for 2018 (95% or 16.5 thousands by non residents), an increase of 3.6% since 2017.

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 the rise in the nights spent by non-residents of the country visited.

In 2018, Spain (467 million nights, -0.9% compared with 2017) retained its lead, ahead of France (444 mn, +2.4%), Italy (429 mn, +1.9%) and Germany (419 mn, +4.3%).

The number of nights spent in tourist accommodation in 2018 grew in nearly all Member States, with the largest increases being observed in Latvia (+8.3%), Lithuania (+7.7%) and Malta (+6.5%), followed by Poland (+5.8%), Romania (+5.5%) and Belgium (+5.4%). In contrast, decreases were registered in Luxembourg (-4.3%), Ireland (-1.5%) and Spain (-0.9%).

In the EU, the number of nights spent in tourist accommodation by residents grew slightly faster (+2.3%) between 2017 and 2018 than those spent by non-residents (+2.0%). Almost every EU Member State recorded an increase in the number of tourism nights spent by residents, with the exception of Greece (-7.3%) and Luxembourg (-4.5%).

In Cyprus 0.9 thousands nights were spend by residents, an increase of 10.6% since 2017, which is the highest in the EU, followed by Malta (+8.6%) and Croatia (+8.4%). Similarly, the number of tourism nights spent by non-residents rose in nearly all Member States, except Ireland (-7.4%), Luxembourg (-4.2%), Spain (-1.6%) and Portugal (-0.1%). The largest increases in 2018 were registered in Latvia (+10.1%), Belgium (+8.9%) and Lithuania (+8.0%).

Within the EU Member States, the largest shares of nights spent by residents were recorded in Romania (81% of total nights spent), Poland (80%), Germany (79%) and Sweden (74%). In contrast, the largest shares of nights spent by non-residents were registered in Malta (96% of total nights spent), Cyprus (95%) and Croatia (93%).