The European Union’s statistical agency Eurostat has released early estimates suggesting that the number of nights spent in tourist accommodation establishments in Greece in 2016 is expected to have reached over some 99.8 million, up by 1.2% compared with the previous year.
Leading the European member states is Spain, which recorded 454 million nights, an increase of 7.8% compared to 2015, followed by France at 395 million (-4.6%) and the United Kingdom at 292 million (-4.5%).
Eurostat figures show that the share of nights spent in Greece last year by non-EU residents was 79% (or 78.4 million). However, compared with 2015, nights spent in Greek tourist accommodation by EU residents showed a higher increase (+4.9%) than non-EU residents (+ 0.2%).
The number of nights spent in tourist accommodation establishments for the whole European Union are estimated at 2.8 billion, up by 2% from 2015, with increases recorded in nearly all member states with the exception of France and the United Kingdom.
The largest increases were observed in Bulgaria (+17.9%) and Slovakia (+16.0%), followed by Poland (+11.8%) and Cyprus (+10.9%).
