Travel Industry, News and Analytics

Top European Cities Hold Their Positions Despite COVID-19 Restrictions

City tourism has always been an important part of the European economy. For years, major EU cities benefited from the constant flow of travelers but the pandemic changed the usual lifestyle of the region. Without a doubt, 2020 was not the best year for European tourism as the entire industry was stagnant. The impact of COVID-19 is truly dreadful – according to the data provided by ECM Benchmarking Report 2020-2021, the average decline in the industry was 60.9% in 2020. A year earlier, European tourism posted a growth of 4.3%.

That being said, the top three European cities retained their positions last year. The leaders – London, Paris, and Berlin – still had the biggest number of bednights sold in 2020. Hotels in Stockholm and Hamburg posted much better results than hotels in other European cities. The hospitality industries of these two cities were the least affected by the pandemic, which caused Stockholm and Hamburg to improve their rankings significantly. Stockholm scored 6th in 2020 (13th in 2019), and Hamburg moved from the 12th rank to the 7th.

As expected, long-haul markets, which are traditionally very important for Europe, had the biggest decline due to travel restrictions. The flow of tourists from China decreased by 88.9%, from the United States – by 88.2%, and 84.8% fewer tourists from Japan visited Europe in 2020. While contemporary urban tourism was a big trend in 2019, the industry changed significantly last year. Both the ECM Report cities and the EU 28 nations posted declines in the number of international bednights by 77% and 57.8% accordingly.

Cities suffered more declines than the rest of the region (-68.5% and -32.6% respectively) in terms of total bednight volume. The growth of bed capacity was also negative in the cities mentioned in the ECM Report (-5.0%). The average bed occupancy reached only 21.3% in 2020. As a rule, warmer months attracted more travelers to Europe but last year the situation was quite different – winter was the busiest season with an average of 1.67 bednights per citizen.

As tourism has a great economic and social impact on the region, rebuilding tourism in Europe as soon as possible is a high political priority. The industry affects many families and communities, people who work not only in hospitality but also in transport, food, and retail industries. This means that recovering tourism will contribute to the recovery of the economy on many levels.

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