Monaco’s Tourism Office reports in its GoFast newsletter of major tourism news that the number of tourist overnight stays in the European Union were slightly up, by two percent, in 2016. A Eurostat report states that the first destination was Spain with 454 million overnight stays, up 7.8 percent compared with 2015.
The second destination was France with 395 million, a decrease of 4.6 percent – largely due to security issues and strikes – and third place Italy with 395 million overnight stays, an increase of 0.5 percent. A shift towards more tourist visits to central and eastern European countries was a noticeable trend in 2016. The European countries with the highest growth in tourist overnight stays were Bulgaria + 17.9 percent, Slovakia + 16 percent and Poland + 11.8 percent.