Online booking platforms continued to grow in Q2 2023

During the second quarter of 2023, guests spent almost 153 million nights in short-term rental accommodation in the EU, booked via Airbnb, Booking, Expedia Group or TripAdvisor. This corresponds to an increase of 15.8% compared with the same period in 2022. With this value, platform tourism continues to exceed pre-pandemic levels and set new monthly record values: in April, 46.7 million nights were spent in accommodation booked via online platforms, showing an increase of 19.5% compared with April 2022. In May, this number increased to 47.6 million nights (+22.6% compared to May 2022) and in June, the total was 58.7 million (+8.4% compared with June 2022).

In the first half of 2023, guests spent around 237 million nights in EU short-term rental accommodation booked via online platforms. This is a significant growth compared with 2022 (199 million nights; +18.8 %); with nights spent far exceeding pre-pandemic levels (193 million nights in 2019; +22.6%).  

Source dataset: tour_ce_omr

This information comes from monthly data on short-stay accommodation offered via online platforms for the second quarter 2023 at the national level, published by Eurostat today. In addition, regional data for the first quarter of 2023 are also being released. These data are collected from four private collaborative economy platforms as part of an agreement with the European Commission in March 2020. Regional data are released one quarter later than the national data in accordance with the rules set out in the agreement. 

This news item presents several highlights from the more detailed Statistics Explained article. For a more in-depth analysis, please also refer to our annual article.

Alpine winter destinations were popular in the first quarter of 2023

While traditional coastal holiday destinations remain popular throughout the year, other regions with more pronounced seasonality appear in the top 20 during the winter months of 2023. The most popular regions for short-term rental accommodation booked via online platforms in the first quarter of 2023 were Rhône-Alpes in France (5.2 million nights), and the Spanish regions of Canarias (5.0 million) and Andalucía (4.3 million). Regions dependent on winter tourism, such as Tirol in Austria (1.9 million) also appeared high on the list.

In the top 20 regions, France and Spain had five regions, Italy and Portugal three, Austria two, while Poland and Hungary had one each. 

Source dataset: tour_ce_omn12