(25 June 2015) – The summer season (June-September) accounts for more than half (51.9%) of the total number of tourism nights spent by EU residents during the whole year. A little more than 60% of these nights were spent in their own country (domestic).
Although on average in the EU domestic tourism prevails, the pattern is very different across Member States. The largest proportions of nights spent by residents in their own country are registered for Greece (89.7% of all summer tourism nights), Spain (87.3%), Romania (86.6%), Bulgaria (84.7%), France and Portugal (both 82.8%).
In contrast, the highest shares of summer tourism nights spent abroad are recorded for residents of Luxembourg (99.2% of all summer tourism nights), Belgium (88.3%) and Malta (86.7%).
August is the leading month of departure for residents of a narrow majority of EU Member States, just ahead of July. In particular, August has a notable share in both Italy (32.7%) and Greece (31.3%), while it is smallest in Denmark (8.6%) and Finland (8.8%). Five EU Member States show no significant difference (less than 1 percentage point) between July and August: France, Croatia, Lithuania, Malta and Austria.
Differences across Member States are less significant in June, all around 10%, while September accounts for less than 10% of annual tourism nights for residents of every EU Member State, except Lithuania (13.4%), the United Kingdom (12.2%), Cyprus (10.6%) and Germany (10.2%). Lithuania is the only EU Member State for which neither July nor August, but September is the peak month for overnight stays of its residents.