Asier Martínez Jurio/Aquí Europa
The Spanish island autonomous communities of the Canary Islands (83.2 million) and the Balearic Islands (61.7 million) were the most visited tourist destinations in the EU in 2023.
According to Eurostat data, in 2023, after the COVID-19 pandemic, foreign tourism had already fully recovered. The three regions with the most foreign tourists in this period were: the Canary Islands (83.2 million), the Balearic Islands (61.7 million) and the Croatian coastal region of Jadranska Hrvatska (80.8 million). This group of regions accounted for 16.4% of the total nights spent by foreigners in the EU.
The ten most visited regions include the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia and Andalusia, two Greek islands (Notio Aigaio, Kriti), the French capital of Ile-de-France, Veneto in Italy and Tyrol in Austria, respectively.
In 58 of the 231 regions for which data is available, the number of nights spent by foreign tourists was higher than that recorded for national tourists.
Regarding the different types of tourism, Eurostat notes that the relative importance of foreign tourists was particularly high in seven popular tourist destinations. These accounted for more than nine out of ten nights of tourist accommodation: the Greek island regions of Kriti (94.6%), Ionia Nisia (93.6%) and Notio Aigaio (92.0%), Malta (93.1%), Jadranska Hrvatska (92.5%), Cyprus (90.8%) and Tyrol (90.7%).
In 2023, the three EU regions with the highest number of nights spent in tourist accommodation by domestic tourists were in France: the capital of Ile-de-France (39.7 million), Rhône-Alpes (38.7 million) and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (37.8 million euros).
