New records set by online booking platforms in 2024

Brussels -In 2024, guests spent 854.1 million nights in short-term rental accommodation in the EU, booked via Airbnb, Booking, Expedia Group, or TripAdvisor. This represents an 18.8 percent increase compared with 2023 (719.0 million nights), a new record high.

Exception for April, each month in 2024 recorded a higher number of nights spent in short-stay accommodations compared with the same month in 2023. The biggest relative increases compared with 2023 were recorded in March (+48.0 pct), May (+31.7 pct), August (+21.6 pct) and November (+21.5 pct). The unusual evolution in March and April (a drop of 1.8 pct) is likely due to the Easter holidays falling into March in 2024, whereas in 2023, they were in April.

The information comes from the monthly data on short-stay accommodations offered through online platforms. Today, Eurostat released data for the fourth quarter at the national level and the third quarter at the regional level.

Top destination in the summer of 2024: Jadranska Hrvatska

The most popular regions for short-term rental accommodation booked via online platforms in the third quarter of 2024 were Jadranska Hrvatska in Croatia (25.2 million nights, +6.0 pct compared with third quarter of 2023), Andalucía in Spain (17.2 million nights, +23.1 pct), and the French Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (15.6 million nights, +26.2 pct).

In the same quarter, among the top 20 regions, six were in France, five each in Spain and Italy, two in Greece, and one region each in Croatia and Portugal.