(Reuters) – Nights spent in short-stay tourist accommodation in the European Union (EU) more than tripled in December compared with the same period a year earlier, the bloc’s statistics office said on Monday. , although this remains significantly below the pre-pandemic level.
The number of tourist overnight stays jumped 237% in December 2021 compared to December 2020, reaching 102.2 million overnight stays, Eurostat said. However, this figure remains 27% lower than in 2019.
The easing of coronavirus restrictions and extensive vaccination campaigns helped tourism recover from the start of the summer, although the emergence of the highly contagious Omicron variant and new travel restrictions have slowed progress over the winter.
Over the year as a whole, the number of nights spent in tourist accommodation increased by 27% compared to 2020, but remained more than a third below the levels recorded before the pandemic.
(Report Dina Kartit; French version Elena Vardon, edited by Jean-Michel Bélot)
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