EU Tourism Plummets 61 Pct During Pandemic Year

Tourism in the European Union (EU) during the year of the COVID-19 pandemic fell by a staggering 61 percent, according to figures released on Friday by Eurostat, the statistical office of the bloc.

The figures confirmed how tourism was among the sectors most affected by the pandemic due to travel restrictions as well as other precautionary measures taken by individual countries in response to the outbreaks.

Eurostat said this drop was reflected in the number of nights spent in EU tourist accommodation establishments between April 2020 and March 2021. This translates into a drop of 1.7 billion from the 2.8 billion nights spent between April 2019 and March 2020, prior to the start of the pandemic.

Among the EU member states with available data, the highest decreases were recorded in Malta, where tourism dropped by a massive 80 percent; Spain, down by 78 percent; and Greece, down by 74 percent. Tourism shrank by 70 percent in Portugal, and 66 percent in Hungary. Eurostat said data for Ireland, France, and Cyprus were not available.

The pandemic also had an adverse effect on internal tourism, with the total nights spent by domestic tourists down by 45 percent. This was not the case in Malta and Slovenia, the only two EU countries where internal tourism increased by 20 and 25 percent respectively in the year under review.