In total, foreign tourists accounted for 545 million nights in the first half of 2023 or 46 per cent of all overnight stays. In recent years, the proportion of foreign tourists has been significantly impacted by the pandemic.

Data from the EU’s statistics office Eurostat shows the largest number of tourist overnight stays and arrivals took place in August, closely followed by July, in 2022.

In 2021, the EU witnessed a projected total of 28.1 million bed places obtainable across 597 000 tourist establishments. Italy and France comprised somewhat over one third of the total vacant capacity, with 5.1 million bed places each. After these …