site.btaEU Tourism Rebounds from Pandemic in 2023, Bulgaria Among Countries with Significant Increase in Tourists

The tourism industry in the European Union is recovering steadily from the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, show Eurostat data released on Friday.

The total number of nights spent in EU tourist accommodation reached nearly 3 billion in 2023. This represents a 6.1% increase compared with 2022 and a 1.4% increase compared with pre-pandemic 2019.

The number of overnight stays in tourist accommodation in Bulgaria increased by 11.1% in 2023 year-on-year but has not yet reached the level of pre-pandemic 2019 (-1.1%), according to Eurostat.

In 2023, over 26.86 million tourist nights were spent in Bulgaria. Of these, over 14.55 million nights were spent by international guests and more than 12.31 million by domestic guests.

A total of 1,066,642 tourist nights were spent in Bulgaria in October 2023, down from 2,923,850 in September and a record 6,329,576 in August.

In absolute terms, the largest number of nights spent in tourist accommodation in 2023 was recorded in Spain (464.17 million), France (454.05 million), Germany (432.27 million), and Italy (431.14 million).