Albania is proving to be the country that has had the highest rates of tourism recovery compared to the pre-pandemic period.
According to data published by Eurostat and processed by Monitor, for the first 10 months of 2022, a total of nearly 3.6 million nights of stays in tourist accommodation were recorded in the country, with an increase of 22.8% compared to the same period in 2021. The figure is in stark contrast to the European Union, which during the same period marked a 5.6% decrease in nights of stays in tourist accommodation units.
This is the highest increase in overnight stays in Europe. After Albania, the fastest recovery was recorded in Serbia, with 21.3%, followed by Denmark, 12.3%, Iceland (5%), the Netherlands (4%), Norway (2.5%) and Turkey with 1.2%.
Other countries in the region continued to experience lower tourist activity than before the pandemic. In Montenegro, overnight stays for the period January-October 2022 fell by almost 9% and in North Macedonia they shrank by 21.3%.
Other INSTAT data, available until November, show that foreign tourist arrivals hit a record high in 2022. The year 2022 significantly surpassed the best tourist year so far, which was 2019, recording a 11% increase in the number of visitors in the first 17 months. A record number of 11 million foreigners entered the country in the first 7.1 months.
The entry of more foreigners has also influenced the significant increase in the number of stays in tourist accommodation.
According to Eurostat, the EU tourism industry appears to be recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. The total number of nights spent in tourist accommodation in 2022 was close to the pre-pandemic level (2.72 billion nights in 2022 compared to 2.88 billion in 2019; -5.6%).
This represents significant growth compared to the number of nights spent in 2020 and 2021 (1.42 billion in 2020, 1.83 billion in 2021; +91.1% and +48.3% in 2022, respectively).
During 2022, the monthly tourism figures increased continuously and finally approached the levels of the corresponding months in 2019. Compared to the first six months before summer 2019 (January–June), in the same period of 2022, the nights spent in tourist accommodation decreased with 11.0%. Meanwhile, the July-December period closely mirrored the levels of the previous nights of 2019 (-1,9%).
Data for 2022 also shows that nights spent by international tourists have approached 2019 levels (1.19 billion nights in 2022 compared to 1.36 billion in 2019; -12.6%). This represents a strong increase compared to the number of nights spent by foreign tourists in 2020 and 2021 (412.5 million nights in 2020, 587.8 million in 2021; +188.8% and +102.6% in 2022, respectively).
In terms of domestic travel, 2022 data shows a record number of 1.53 billion nights spent, an increase of 10.9 million compared to 2019 (+0.7%).
Among EU countries, the number of nights spent by domestic and foreign tourists in 2022 compared to 2019 has increased in three of the Member States with available data: Denmark (38.4 million nights in 2022 compared to 34.3 million in 2019; +12.3%), the Netherlands (128.3 million compared to 123.4 million; +3.9%) and Belgium (42.7 million compared to 42.5 million; +0.5%).
Meanwhile, other countries have not yet fully recovered from the pandemic's impact on tourism. This was especially the case in Latvia (3.9 million in 2022 compared to 5.5 million in 2019; -29.6%) and Slovakia (12.3 million compared to 17.2 million; -28.3%).
NOTE: The article is the intellectual property of Monitor magazine
