Of all tourism expenditure, 78 % was on trips to a destination inside the EU: average spent is €377
Tourism is an important activity in the EU that contributes to employment and economic growth, as well as to the development of rural, peripheral or less-developed areas. top ten destinations for holidaymakers
For each tourism trip, Europeans spent on average EUR 377. Broken down by destination, they spent EUR 223 on average on a domestic trip and EUR 812 on an outbound trip.
The average spent per night was EUR 75 (EUR 58 on average for each domestic tourism night and EUR 97 a night on average for trips abroad).
German, French and British tourists were the biggest spenders in absolute terms top ten destinations for holidaymakers
Their expenditure accounted for 58 % of all of the tourism expenditure of EU residents. This share is much more than the proportion of German, French and British tourists in the total number of trips (50 %) or overnight stays (53 %) – see the article on the characteristics of tourism trips.
Per trip, tourists from Luxembourg spent the most (EUR 769), followed by Austrian (EUR 641) and Maltese tourists (EUR 633). Domestic tourism expenditure per trip was highest in Austria (EUR 371), followed by Denmark (EUR 351) and Italy (EUR 331). The biggest spenders per outbound tourism trip were Danish (EUR 1 279), Cypriot (EUR 1 059) and French (EUR 1 000) tourists .
Residents of Denmark (EUR 162), Austria (EUR 132), Malta (EUR 128), Ireland (EUR 112), Luxembourg (EUR 108) and Finland (EUR 102) spent at least EUR 100 per night on average during their tourism trips.
In eight of the 28 EU countries, residents spent more than half of the tourism expenditure during 2017 on domestic trips. The highest shares for domestic expenditure were observed for Romania (79 %) and Greece (76 %), followed by Spain (66 %), France and Portugal (both at 65 %) and Bulgaria and Italy (both at 64 %). For the majority of countries, however, most of the tourism expenditure occurred in foreign destinations with the residents of Luxembourg (99 %), Belgium (93 %) and Malta (92 %) having spent in outbound trips more than 90 % of their total tourism expenditure.
In all countries, most tourism expenditure occurred during longer trips of four or more nights (EU average: 72 %). Only in the case of Sweden (2016 data) was tourism expenditure for short trips of one to three nights higher than for long trips, then followed Finland where the share of expenditure for short trips was higher compared with other Member States, however still lower than for long trips. top ten destinations for holidaymakers
