European tourism industry sees partial recovery in summer

BRUSSELS - The European tourism industry only partially recovered amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as the contraction of the tourist accommodation sector moderated in summer, according to a report published on Wednesday by Eurostat, the statistical office of European Union (EU).

The number of nights spent in tourist accommodation such as hotels, short-stay accommodations and camping in the EU slumped by 63 percent year-on-year in March, when the first wave of lockdowns was implemented, before deteriorating further in April.

However, as restrictive measures started to ease, the drop in the number of overnight stays has consistently narrowed during the summer months since May.

In August, the tourist accommodation sector saw roughly one-third fewer nights spent compared with the previous year.

From January to August, the number of overnight stays in tourist accommodation in the EU totaled 1.1 billion, a decline of 50 percent from the same period of last year.

During the summer months, although the EU internal borders were reopened to spur the EU-wide tourist industry with precautionary measures taken, the external border has largely been closed to the world, including large outbound markets such as the United States and China.