In 2011, the number of nights spent in hotels and similar establishments in the EU27 reached a peak of 1.6 billion nights, up by 3.8% compared with 2010. The evolution of the number of nights spent in hotels in the EU27 showed alternating phases of growth and decline over the last decade. After a low point in 2003, the number of nights spent grew steadily for four successive years. In 2008 and 2009, the number of nights spent in the EU27 fell, but in 2010 began to recover from the crisis to reach a new record in 2011 for both nights spent by residents and by non-residents.

The member state with the highest numbers of nights spent in hotels was, unsurprisingly, Spain with 288m nights, plus 7,8% compared to 2010. Second place goes to Italy with 249m nights, although the country was the only member state in which there was a decrease compared to 2010. Next in line are Germany (+5,4%), France (+3%) and the U.K. (0,5%). These five member states accounted for 70 % of all hotel nights spent in the EU27 in 2011.

The largest increases were recorded in Lithuanian hotels (+19,8%) and Bulgaria (+18,3%).

No data was available for Luxembourg, Greece and Ireland.